By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
SONOMA, Calif. – New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen powered his way to the lead on a restart with 11 laps remaining in Saturday’s Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 on the Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway road course and bolted off to a 1.323-second victory – his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series win coming only a week after his first.
The 35-year old Kiwi – who earned his first career pole position earlier Saturday at the 1.99-mile course and led a race best 32 laps – took the lead from Austin Hill negotiating a tight Turn 7 on a late race restart; his No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet winning a battle of tough side-by-side action that ultimately cost Hill four positions.
Both drivers acknowledged the close racing – the second time this season they have had contact racing for the late race lead at a road course. At Austin’s Circuit of The America they collided racing for the win on the last lap only to see NASCAR Cup Series regular Kyle Larson bolt by to claim the victory over them both.
“Man, what a race – an adventure up and down and up and down all day,” said Van Gisbergen, who – as he did in Portland – celebrated his win by signing a rugby ball and kicking it into the grandstands.
“But that last restart I was just giving it all I had and two guys going for the same real estate came together.
“It was pretty awesome though, a lot of fun. Hope everyone enjoyed the show. Pretty awesome back-to-back weeks for us.”
Hill, who led 21 laps and finished fifth in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, was clearly displeased with the contact between himself and Van Gisbergen, but insisted on taking a sort or racing “high road.”
“I’m gonna leave it to the keyboard warriors on this one, I’ll let them figure out what happened,” said Hill, as he watched the replay on the track’s big video screen. “No matter what comment I say, it’ll be wrong.
“I plead the fifth, I’m not going to say anything about it,” he continued. “We’ll just go on to the next one, good hard racing. We were holding off SVG for a while, had that caution and I knew it was going to be tough on the restart and it didn’t work out. But we had a good points day and finished in the top-five. You can’t ask for more than that.”
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Sheldon Creed finished runner-up to Van Gisbergen, the ninth second-place finish for Creed in the series and second of the 2024 season. JR…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsports Tribune…