Shane van Gisbergen now has five wins in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and eleven victories on road/street courses across the top two divisions.
The New Zealander started from the outside of the front row, and the only driver who could keep up with him throughout the day was JR Motorsports teammate Connor Zilisch. However, brake issues and a late-race incident took the rising star out of contention.
As for SVG, he restarted from sixth with four fresh tires with just five laps to go. He darted across the track, entering shallow into Turn 1 as the other leaders pushed wide, clearing the way for him to pass them all and win the race.
“Yeah, good to finally execute,” smiled SVG. “We had an awesome day. Thank you to Safety Culture, JR Motorsports. Pit crew was awesome. You know, the strategy worked out well and I wondered what was going to happen on that last restart and I kind of sucked the #41 [Sam Mayer] in and he took everyone out for me. So, that was cool.”
On Sunday, Van Gisbergen will start 13th for the Cup race where he hopes to continue his incredible streak of five consecutive road/street course wins at the top level of the sport.
“Yeah, what an awesome day,” he continued. “Good to finally win here and hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow. I did learn a bit. I tried some things. I wasn’t driving very good earlier today and we lacked in the car but also I can be better too. So, hopefully it’s worthwhile doing these races and yeah, hopefully it helps tomorrow.”
Austin Hill finished second, Sammy Smith third, Jesse Love fourth, and Corey Day fifth. Brent Crews, William Sawalich, Justin Allgaier, Ross Chastain, and Brennan Poole filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Stage 1
At the start, Hill went three-wide for the lead, but it was SVG who came out the other end with control of the race. Behind them, both Sawalich and Caruth suffered nose damage in a Turn 1 stack-up, but no one spun.
As the stage progressed, Jeremy Clements spun off, but was able to get back rolling. Zilisch stayed close to van Gisbergen, and took the lead in Turn 1 on Lap 6.
However, the Kiwi didn’t let his teenager teammate get away, and stayed close. Just as they planned to pit, SVG made an aggressive pass on Zilisch so he could lead the way onto pit road with two to go and flip the stage.
Hill stayed out and won Stage 1 over Mayer, Allgaier, Jones, Love, Kvapil, Day, Green, Caruth, and SVG. Mayer snatched second away from Allgaier through the final corner, and the two drivers drag-raced to the line.
Stage 2
Things got wild on the restart and 17-yer-old Crews took the lead in an aggressive four-wide pass through Turn 1.
Soon after, Zilisch began to abruptly fade as he complained about brake issues. Up front, SVG picked his way back to the lead, passing Crews and setting sail. Crews then got into it with Creed, spinning last week’s winner out while battling inside the top five.
With just seven laps left in the stage, Baltazar Leguizamon appeared to have no brakes as he slammed into the tire pack in Turn 1 at a high rate of speed. He climbed from the car, and it did cause a caution as they recovered the #30 car.
Most of the field came down pit road with Mayer winning the race out of the pit lane. Zilisch had an extended stop as JR Motorsports tried to rectify the issues with that car.
A handful of cars, led by Kvapil, did choose to stay out. It was a hectic restart as the drivers with old tires tried to hold back those who pitted. Mayer held on to win the stage, followed by Kvapil, Love, Van Gisbergen, Hill, S. Smith, B. Jones, Chastain, and Sieg.
Thompson and Sanchez collided in the final lap of the stage, spinning at the exit of the last corner. During the stage break, Sanchez doored Thompson to showcase his frustration.
JJ Yeley stepped out of the #42 car mid-race due to an illness, and Brad Perez took over for the rest of the event.
Stage 3
Mayer had the lead for the restart, but he could not hold it. On the backend of the first green-flag lap, he was side-by-side with Love when Van Gisbergen cut under both and snatched the lead away.
In the pack, Zilisch was charging back through the field after JRM made repairs to the brakes on his #1 Chevrolet. He made his way back inside the top ten with ten laps to go.
Allgaier cut a tire down and had to pit under green, and elsewhere in the field, Lavar Scott went for a spin but continued on.
Austin Green slowed abruptly with some mechanical issue, but he was able to limp his #87 machine back to the pits. Sage Karam also slowed with a broken left-front. He was unable to make it back, causing a caution with nine laps to go.
Most of the field chose to pit, with Smith leading Love and Mayer off pit road. Van Gisbergen lost three spots in the pit lane. Sanchez stayed out, and was the leader for the five to go restart. He was followed by Allgaier, S. Smith, Love, Mayer, and Van Gisbergen.
On the restart, SVG surged from sixth to first as the leaders overcooked it into Turn 1.
Behind him, it was chaos as several cars went spinning. Harrison Burton went around, and two other cars collided trying to avoid him. Another incident happened at Turn 6A, and Rajah Caruth got stuck in the barrier. He did get back rolling, avoiding a full-course yellow.
Zilisch drove his way back up to fourth, only to get turned by Day. He angrily came over the radio, calling Day a ‘hack.’ The Hendrick rookie was involved in a couple of high-profile incidents last weekend as well.
But at the front, it was all SVG as he cruised to the checkered flag for his first win at COTA in any NASCAR division.
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