The first time Shane van Gisbergen raced in Chicago, he was largely unknown in NASCAR. The second time, he was one of the favorites on the downtown street course.<\/p>\n
The third time is a different situation for van Gisbergen once again. This time, he has a second Cup Series victory in his back pocket \u2014 providing some flexibility for the 36-year-old New Zealand native as he prepares for the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a nice position now having won a race,\u201d van Gisbergen said Friday. \u201cAnd it may change our strategy. If we\u2019re in a position to get a playoff point, we\u2019ll probably try and get that, but that\u2019ll put us deep in the field for the next stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah, there\u2019s a bit of a toss-up there what we\u2019re going to do, but it\u2019s a nice position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure is.<\/p>\n
Just two years ago, van Gisbergen \u2014 a three-time champion in Australia\u2019s Supercars \u2014 put on a dazzling show in a rainy first edition of NASCAR\u2019s downtown Chicago experiment<\/a>. Making the most of his extensive street racing experience, he became the first driver to win his Cup Series debut<\/a> since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.<\/p>\n He won Chicago\u2019s Xfinity Series race<\/a> last year and the first stage in the Cup race before he was knocked out by a crash.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, I have great memories here,\u201d van Gisbergen said. \u201cThis place has changed my life, so I\u2019m going to have special memories of this place forever.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Gisbergen\u2019s success in Chicago led to a full-time Cup ride with Trackhouse Racing. But the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet is learning his way around NASCAR, and he got off to a slow start this season.<\/p>\n While oval tracks remain a challenge, he certainly hasn\u2019t forgotten his roots on street and road courses. He posted his second Cup win last month at Aut\u00f3dromo Hermanos Rodr\u00edguez in Mexico City.<\/p>\n Van Gisbergen is scheduled to compete in both Chicago races this weekend. Next up for NASCAR is another road course at Sonoma Raceway, providing an opportunity to move up from No. 32 in the Cup standings and build some momentum.<\/p>\n \u201cRoad courses are just a bonus for us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know we\u2019re going to be good and we can just focus on trying to get results there.\u201d<\/p>\n NASCAR Chicago Street Race puts city \u2014 in a seemingly endless loop through the Loop \u2014\u00a0back on national stage<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even after two years, the downtown Chicago street course<\/a> remains a tricky proposition. The 12-turn, 2.2-mile track is narrow and bumpy in spots \u2014 to go along with manhole covers and transitions from concrete to asphalt and back \u2014 and there is little room for error in some areas. Rain affected the action in each of the first two weekends, and there could be more showers Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Patience is sometimes the best approach, but that goes only so far in NASCAR.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s easy to say that until Shane is out there a second faster than you and you have to go put yourself in some uncomfortable situations,\u201d said Joey Logano, the reigning Cup Series champion.<\/p>\n When it comes to van Gisbergen on road courses, Logano said the rest of the Cup Series is \u201cin a way, playing catch-up.\u201d Van Gisbergen said he feels the same way about ovals.<\/p>\n \u201cThese guys have been doing left-handers since they were 10 years old,\u201d van Gisbergen said. \u201cYou know, they\u2019re two completely different sports, and although there has been road racing in NASCAR forever, it\u2019s not that much.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, yeah, just the experience levels are different in what we do. And I feel like, yes, they\u2019ve definitely gotten a lot better since the first one on this track, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time Shane van Gisbergen raced in Chicago, he was largely unknown in NASCAR. The second time,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[21890,31468,1406,32268,9314,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-40619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-chicago-street-race","9":"tag-grant-park","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-nascar-chicago","12":"tag-shane-van-gisbergen","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114800359273893221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619","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=40619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n