Shane van Gisbergen 'had a blast' running P4 at Indianapolis Xfinity Series race
In his first-ever race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, Shane van Gisbergen walks away with a P4 finish. This is his second-best performance on an oval track in his NASCAR career, only behind his P3 finish at Atlanta.
Who had SVG earning two top-5s on ovals during the season? I’m not sure anybody did. Yet, here we are. A very strong performance from van Gisbergen, who learned throughout and made the most of his chances in a race won by Riley Herbst.
One more restart and Shane van Gisbergen would have been racing for the lead. He had fresher tires, just not enough track position and time to close the gap in the final 12 laps. On restarts, anything can happen, but another never came.
Still, SVG was happy with his performance. And who wouldn’t be with a top-5 finish in their first IMS race on the oval?
“At the start, I was still learning,” van Gisbergen said on the postrace broadcast. “I’m probably a bit too conservative. I just built up, built up and got better. And as the car got better, so did I. This Xfinity series is so fun, the way the cars move around and the way we’re all sliding. I had a blast. And then at the end, running fifth was really cool. We decided to take tires and the restarts were epic coming back through. I had a blast.”
When asked about his oval performances, and his playoff hopes, van Gisbergen gave an interesting answer.
“Well, that’s this whole year. And I feel like I just keep getting better and better,” he said confidently. “I’m always too conservative, slow in practice and slow in qualifying and just get better in the race. For me, I have to respect a place like this. The walls don’t move. I just build up and go my own pace. I know I can do it and the car and team is good enough to do it. It was awesome, really fun to do it with these guys.”
How can you not like this guy? Shane van Gisbergen is right, he has been conservative this season. But it is necessary. He has to learn to walk at these tracks before he can run. While SVG won’t have many road courses coming up, he does go back to some ovals he has already raced at.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series is still heading to Daytona, Atlanta, Watkins Glen (road course), Kansas, Talladega, Charlotte Roval (road course), Las Vegas, Martinsville, and Phoenix. All of those tracks, besides the road courses, are repeats.
With a little bit of knowledge about these seven tracks on the schedule, could Shane van Gisbergen contend for a win at one of these ovals? He’s incredibly talented. Why not?