By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CHICAGO – This time last year, Shane van Gisbergen was an unknown commodity in the NASCAR world as he was getting set to make his first start in the Cup Series on the Chicago Street Course.
By the end of the weekend, everyone knew his name.
A year later, van Gisbergen comes into Chicago with a target on his back as the entire field will be gunning for him to take down the street course king. With a year of studying the tricks of the trade that made him great around the 12-turn, 2.2-mile street course, it’ll be a more level playing field between the New Zealander and the rest of his competitors.
“It’s special to come back here,” said van Gisbergen. “Being here for a year, yeah it does have more meaning now knowing how tough this series is and how good everyone here is.
“We just had a dream run and we’re ready to try and do the same again. The preparation has been pretty good. Looking out there now, the track looks amazing. The weather looks like it’s going to be pretty good, which I’m excited for. Hopefully it’s a good race weekend for everyone.”
Since his win at Chicago a year ago, van Gisbergen has uprooted his entire life from Down Under, closing out his V8 Supercars career, in which he won three championships, to move to the United States to chase a career in NASCAR.
After a second Cup Series start at Indianapolis last summer, van Gisbergen jumped in with both feet in 2024, running a full-time Xfinity Series campaign along with a number of Cup Series starts.
Thus far in 2024, he has already banked two wins in the Xfinity Series with his Kaulig Racing team, as well as running three Cup races in the first half of the season.
Coming into the weekend at Chicago, he’ll be running double duty in both the Xfinity and Cup Series, trying to score another road course win in Xfinity and keep his perfect streak alive at Chicago in Cup.
With such limited practice time for both series compared to the inaugural event in 2023, van Gisbergen explained that he’ll take as much track time as he can get, even if the cars are vastly different animals.
“The car difference is huge, but laps and reps overcomes that by so far,” he said. “Especially what we’re going to be doing tomorrow morning, the track is going to be completely different from how the Xfinity race finishes. So getting to experience that is going to be a huge head start for Sunday, which is why so many…
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