FANTASY NASCAR Racin

Shane van Gisbergen was born to race. From pestering his Dad Robert to buy him a Suzuki ATV at the tender age of five, to signing - at just 17 years of age - a contract to race V8 Supercars for top Ford team Stone Brothers Racing, the constant in his life has been competition. Raised on the rural fringe of New Zealand's largest city Auckland, Shane spent his formative years racing ATVs on natural terrain Motocross tracks and a Quarter Midget on speedway ovals; before a brief but typically successful dalliance with karts and then a year in the Formula First class courtesy New Zealand's SpeedSport magazine Scholarship program saw his focus turn to tarmac. After competing in Motocross, Quarter Midgets and karts from 1998 to 2004, van Gisbergen placed third in the 2004/2005 New Zealand Formula First Championship and won the associated Rookie of the Year award. Since then he has been on a fast track to major league Australasian success, winning the New Zealand Formula Ford championship in 2006 and finishing a close second to teammate Daniel Gaunt in the Toyota Racing Series in 2007.

Driving for Team Kiwi Racing, van Gisbergen became the 200th driver to start a race in a V8 Supercar at the Jim Beam 400 at Oran Park Raceway in Round 8 of 2007. Having impressed in his 2007 races, van Gisbergen was picked up by Stone Brothers Racing in 2008. He continued with the team for five seasons until 2012. In late 2012, he announced he would be leaving V8 Supercars, but in January it emerged that he was moving to Tekno Autosports at the start of the 2013 season. Van Gisbergen faced legal action for breaking his contract with Stone Brothers Racing. The move to Tekno proved fruitful, with

van Gisbergen finishing runner-up in the championship in 2014. He moved to Triple Eight in 2016 as teammate to Whincup and Craig Lowndes and scored Holden’s 500th championship race win at Symmons Plains among seven race victories, plus he claimed the Enduro Cup with Alex Prémat and the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy at Pukekohe on his way to his first Supercars title. Van Gisbergen won on debut with his new team and contended for the title the following season, eventually finishing runner-up to future teammate Jamie Whincup. In 2018, van Gisbergen won both Race 1 and Race 2 at Adelaide, driving a Holden Commodore ZB. (For those unaccustomed in Europe the "Holden" is what they call the "Chevrolet" brand. At Newcastle in 2018, van Gisbergen was handed a 25-second post-race penalty following an investigation into

a refueling breach at his third pitstop. Scott McLaughlin was declared the winner of the race. Van Gisbergen finished second at race 31 and in the points standings. He remained a regular contender in the years that followed and broke through for a Bathurst 1000 win in 2020, but finished off the Gen2 era with two of the most dominant seasons in ATCC/Supercars Championship history. Van Gisbergen romped to the 2021 title off the back of 14 wins and 23 podiums from 30 races, including a streak of seven victories to start the season – a period where he also posted extracurricular triumphs in the New Zealand Grand Prix, GT World Challenge and Bathurst 6 Hour. His early-season haul was all the more impressive given van Gisbergen broke a collarbone and cracked three ribs in a

successful racing driver in the Supercars Championship history. He has won the Bathurst 1000 three times, in 2020, 2022, and 2023. He and Paul Morris are the only drivers to have won all three major car racing events at Mount Panorama: the Bathurst 1000, Bathurst 6 Hour and Bathurst 12 Hour. In May, 2023, it was announced that van Gisbergen would make his debut in the NASCAR Cup Series driving the #91 Chevrolet for Track House Racing and its Project 91 program at the inaugural event at the Chicago Street Course. He started third but was shuffled back to mid-pack after a pileup the lap before the completion of the second stage. Van Gisbergen took the

lead on lap 71 from Justin Haley and went on to claim the win. The first time a drive had won in his first Cup start in 60 years. He is also the first New Zealander to win in the Cup series and only the sixth driver born outside the United States to claim a Cup win. Van Gisbergen would run one other road course race in the Cup series in 2023 when he raced the road course at Indianapolis. He finished 10th. He made a start in the NASCAR Truck series racing at Indianapolis Raceway Park. It was a major difference running an oval track and was used as a learning experience. He started 28th and 19th. It was announced that van Gisbergen signed with TrackHouse Racing to drive races across three different NASCAR series in 2024. The super star road course ace ran full time in the Xfinity Series in 2024, and made 12 Cup starts also. He ran most of the final 12 races in the Cup series to get prepared for racing

on the ovals full time in 2025. But he needed the experience in the Xfinity Series to get used to the ovals. He ran well in the season opening race at Daytona, ran a clean race, avoided all the accidents and came home 12th. He had a surprise run at Atlanta when he came home third. He hand grenaded a motor at Las Vegas the following week on lap 27 and finished 37th, but came back strong at Phoenix when he finished a very impressive sixth. When they run the first road course race of the year

at COTA. He qualified well and ran great, as expected, scoring points in both stages; even though he pitted before the pits closed at the end of each stage. Near the end of the race he was leading with just two laps to go, but got muscled out of the way by Austin Hill who took away the lead. NASCAR had been very picky about drivers cutting corners to close and issued a whopping 16 penalties for it. If caught it was a pass-thru penalty. SVG ran clean the whole race; but he too was tagged for short-cutting turn four on the final lap. So instead of a pass-thru penalty

NASCAR gave him a 30 second post race penalty. Moving him from near the front back to finish in 27th. Decent runs continued as van Gisbergen continued to learn the nuances of NASCAR racing. After COTA, the next seven races saw all of his finishes except one from 11th to 18th. Finally, the Xfinity series went to Portland to run another road course. SVG started second and led 12 laps, before taking the lead for the final time on lap 72. He would hold off Justin Allgaier the final four laps to get his first Xfinity win, and locked him into the play-offs. The following week, the Xfinity stars were again on the road course at Sonoma. This time he started on the pole, and led 32 laps. SVG led every lap in Stage 1 and won the stage. Ty Gibbs had pitted while under green prior to the stage end, and when everyone else pitted, he restarted first, and led every lap in Stage 2, while SVG finished second. Austin Hill was in the

lead when the final stage started, and there was finally a yellow for an accident one lap 51. 13 cars were involved, including Gibbs. There was only one other yellow the whole race; and when the field bunched up, SVG was ready to pounce on Hill. He grabbed the lead and held on the final 11 laps to claim his second win. At Iowa he was involved in a crash and finished 34th, before he was back to posting finishes in the teens. When the series went to Chicago; Shane was on a track he had raced on before. He won the pole, led 14 laps, and beat Ty Gibbs to the finish. When the play-offs started at Kansas he started 22nd, but managed to finish eighth. He got involved in a big crash at Talladega and ended up in 38th spot. But on the Roval he

was able to finish third, but it wasn't good enough for him to advance further into the play-offs. After he was eliminated, the Cup team seemed to take priority so he could glean as much info as possible to prepare for 2025. He would end up with three wins, seven top five and ten top ten finishes in the Xfinity series. He had 17 top 15 finishes, not bad for a rookie season. In the Cup series he made 12 starts. The first seven starts showed he needed time to adjust to the Next-Gen cars and mostly the tracks NASCAR raced on. He had one finish of 20th in those seven starts, and all other starts were 26th or worse. But

he seemed to learn how to drive the cars the more experience he got. His final five starts he only had one finish worse than 15th. At Watkins Glen he ran well and looked to be in position to get the win. The race went into a two lap shoot-out in overtime, and SVG took the green in the lead. He was leading as the white flag waved, but Chris Buescher muscled SVG out of the way on the final lap, and scooted away. Shane could never catch up to get his pay-back and Buescher got the win with SVG second. He won his first pole at the Roval at Charlotte and led the first 21 laps. He ran well the rest of the race, but was never at the point again. He finish in seventh spot in the end. He added a 12th place run at Martinsville for his final Cup start of the season. He did make one ARCA start in 2024. Since SVG was a rookie, and had never driven on a huge super speedway. NASCAR wanted to see how he would handle the big track, close quarters and high speed. They wanted to observe so they could decide if they were going to let him start that race in the Xfinity series. He started 34th driving the #28 car. There was a crash on lap four SVG got caught up in, and not of his doing. He managed to keep racing and run with the lead pack to show NASCAR he was capable of running on the big track in a responsible manner. So, NASCAR allowed van Gisbergen to run the Xfinity race. In 2025, SVG will move to drive Cup fill time for Track House Racing in the #88. Some info from Wikipedia.

Fantasy NASCAR Racing

SHANE ROBERT VANGISBERGEN - 05/09/1989