Kaulig Racing President Chris Rice is fired up, makes bold prediction following SVG win at Chicago
Shane van Gisbergen picked up his third Xfinity Series race win on Saturday in Chicago, with a triumph in The Loop 110. And his win had one of his bosses, Kaulig Racing president Chris Rice, in pretty good spirits.
So high were Rice’s spirits that he lodged a pretty bold prediction for where van Gisbergen might stand by the end of the season.
“You know, I knew our Xfinity program was behind and I knew we needed to do a lot of work, but that’s why we brought AJ back and we’re going to start getting the ovals better but no, I didn’t really think SVG would win three, but I don’t ever underestimate him on these road courses,” Rice said to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Tomorrow’s going to be amazing, but no, I didn’t think he’d have three win stickers on his car. But I’m so excited he does. He might be leading the points when they go into the playoffs with all the playoff points he has.”
With his win on Saturday, van Gisbergen moved up two places in the Xfinity Series playoff points standing, climbing into the No. 11 spot. He’s currently 200 points behind the leader, Cole Custer.
And amid the scenery in Chicago, Rice is excited for more racing. He also lauded all the various people who had a hand in building the success that Rice, van Gisbergen and Co. shared on Saturday.
“I am so jacked up. This is so awesome,” Rice said. “To be in Chicago, and all the tall buildings and get the win — but any time you can win is pretty awesome. So thanks to Matt Kaulig for making this happen. But Shane van Gisbergen, I mean just amazing. But we’ve built a road course program and then he gets in it and continues to run well. So thanks to WeatherTech, Ty Norris back in Pocono when we started talking about this, Justin Marks, everybody that makes this happen.
“I am pumped up. I’m super excited for some odd reason and I don’t even know why.”
Some of van Gisbergen’s closest competition sounded off
The race had quite the backdrop with the iconic skyline in the background – with much better weather than last year, too. Kyle Larson looked like he had fun throughout The Loop 110 as he battled van Gisbergen to the end.
Ultimately, Larson said van Gisbergen might’ve had even more fun. Their battles were entertaining as the race went along, and there was still plenty to take away from Saturday’s run.
“I was having a blast,” Larson said. “He was obviously way faster than me and I think he was having fun just playing with me. I wanted to use this race to learn and I wanted to take the first opportunity I got to battle him. We were going to give each other space because it was early on, but you just never know when the race plays out, if I’m gonna have a chance to battle him and learn racecraft stuff. So that was big on my agenda and I feel like I learned quite a bit, battling him and creating different angles and all that.
“I think today was a success. Obviously, we’d like to win, but our car just wasn’t quite as good as his. He could just exit Turn 5 just way smoother than me. I just was bouncing so aggressively. I couldn’t accelerate. Same through Turn 9. I just couldn’t carry the speed that he could. If I carried just a little bit too much, which was never even close to how much speed he was pulling through there, I would just sheer and get loose. And that carries all the way to 11. It was a fun, fun race, even through the restarts in the beginning of the third stage was cool.”