Shane Van Gisbergen doesn’t really like Chicago but he also owes it everything he gets to do right now at the NASCAR Cup Series level.
It’s not personal and it’s kind of nuanced but the three-time Australian Supercars champion turned rookie for Trackhouse Racing won the inaugural street race in the Downtown Windy City at Grant Park.
At the time, he was still racing full-time in Oz and only made his Cup debut as part of the Trackhouse Project 91 initiative. Since he won in his Cup Series debut, a full-time switch was viewed as inevitable and he raced full-time in NASCAR last year between a full Xfinity Series slate and partial Cup appearances.
Now SVG is synonymous with this event and he does have warm feelings about returning for a third consecutive year.
“Yeah, I do,” Van Gisbergen said on Friday in Chicago. “This place is pretty cool to me every time I come back. I hate cities, so I don’t really like the place. But when you get here, it’s pretty cool. You know, I have great memories here. This place has changed my life, so I’m going to have special memories of this place forever. But yeah, not enough grass for me.”
He said that last bit with a laugh. Again, it’s not personal. He just has a country boy disposition, which makes his talent for tackling street courses with their long straights and abrupt corners all the more ironic in a sense.
And amongst street courses, Chicago is especially tricky.
“It’s a bit like Gold Coast in some ways… like the 90-degree corners and stuff, and Adelaide in some sections,” Van Gisbergen said. “But yeah, it’s different in its own way. The hardest part here is the no runoff… like turn one and turn five, going straight into a wall at the biggest braking zones, is pretty daunting. So yeah, normally you have runoff in the tricky corners, so that’s probably the hardest part about this place.”
Van Gisbergan also won the inaugural race in Mexico City last month, locking him into his first Cup Series playoff run, despite struggling to break into the top-30 of the championship standings in his rookie season.
He’s spent all summer learning the oval racing game in the current generation Cup Series car and he will automatically be a top-16 driver in points once the playoffs begin. His seeding will be dependent on how many more wins he can put together over the three remaining regular season road course races.
Chicago
Sonoma
Watkins Glen
“Yeah, and our oval stuff really is getting better and better too,” Van Gisbergen said. “We had a bad week at Pocono, but again at Atlanta, I felt like we made a huge step and a huge gain from earlier in the year at Atlanta. We were running up front, even before half the field got taken out.
“But I was having some great times there and learning. You know, I had learned so much since the start of the year. I felt really comfortable up front, so yeah, I think we’re really still learning, getting better every week. It’s been a really fun road to be a part of this, I’m enjoying it. And then, as I’ve said before, road courses are just a bonus for us. We know we’re going to be good and we can just focus on trying to get results there.”
