NASCAR driver Shane van Gisbergen took time off from his preparations for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday to hang out with Coastal Carolina athletes and coaches on Wednesday, Aug. 20.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old New Zealand native had fun, too.<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen, accompanied by Darlington Raceway President Josh Harris, made a stop at Coastal\u2019s new indoor practice facility where he showed Chanticleer special teams members how to kick a rugby ball. Then, he ventured to Broadway Grand Prix to race go-karts with Coastal coaches, including men\u2019s basketball coach Justin Gray and baseball coach Kevin Schnall.<\/p>\n
And he did feel the August heat. It\u2019s the same heat he\u2019ll face at Darlington for the Southern 500 on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything over 20 degrees sucks,\u201d van Gisbergen said. \u201cThat\u2019s Celsius degrees. It\u2019s hot for me. But we have good cool suits, helmets and stuff like that. We just try to prepare as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen has taken NASCAR by storm, establishing himself as the circuit\u2019s dominant road course driver. He has five wins \u2013 all on road courses \u2013 in 38 races. Van Gisbergen became the first driver in the modern era of NASCAR to win his Cup Series debut race when he won the Grant Park 220 in Chicago in 2023.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shane Van Gisbergen listens to a question at the Coastal Carolina indoor football facility.<\/p>\n
By Mike Duprez
\ninfo@myhorrynews.com<\/p>\n
The three-time Australia Supercars Champion qualified for the upcoming NASCAR playoffs by winning four NASCAR cup race, all on road courses, including at Watkins Glen on Aug. 10.<\/p>\n
In his most recent race, at Richmond on Aug. 16, van Gisbergen posted a 14th place finish, giving hope that he might be nearing his first oval victory. He also had a top-20 finish in Darlington in April.<\/p>\n
Taking the checkered flag might be a stretch, van Gisbergen admits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably a long way from winning,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll have a crack at it. It means everything. That\u2019s why we race. We prepare as best we can every week. But we\u2019re realistic, too. I\u2019ve still got a long way to go. I\u2019m pretty new at this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR driver Shane van Gisbergen took time off from his preparations for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[95029,95028,52256,1406,9314,95030,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-164955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-broadway-grand-prix","9":"tag-coastal-carolina","10":"tag-coastal-carolina-university","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-shane-van-gisbergen","13":"tag-southern-500","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115069228473132897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}