{"id":51239,"date":"2025-07-09T11:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T11:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51239\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T11:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T11:14:10","slug":"shane-van-gisbergen-on-the-time-he-almost-quit-and-improving-in-nascar-12-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51239\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen on the time he almost quit, and improving in NASCAR: 12 Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Chicago<\/a> and Mexico City winner<\/a> Shane van Gisbergen, a NASCAR Cup Series rookie for Trackhouse Racing. This interview, conducted before his Mexico City win, has been lightly edited, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions Podcast (which is now free on all podcast platforms).<\/p>\n

1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid, and what do you remember about that moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I used to go to Western Springs (a dirt track in Auckland, New Zealand), and in the back of the program was an autograph book. I would try and get as many drivers as I could and fill them up. Allan Wakeling, a sprint car driver, was the king of Western Springs, and I\u2019d always get him first, and then I\u2019d go and try to get all the drivers \u2014 even my dad (Robert van Gisbergen). It was pretty cool.<\/p>\n

2. What is the most miserable you\u2019ve ever been inside of a race car?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably my last year of Supercars, every time I had to drive that car. (Laughs.) I hated that car.<\/p>\n

It just didn\u2019t handle to your liking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was just a s\u2014box, boring car. You had to drive it 40 percent every time you drove, and if you tried to drive hard, you\u2019d go backward or slower. It was just mind-numbing to drive. And the racing, everyone would be in a line just driving around at 40 percent, and I found it so boring. The generation (of car) before in Supercars were like 400 percent driving. They were awesome. So I don\u2019t miss that car.<\/p>\n

3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably cards with Jessica (Dane, his partner). We play cards a bit, and she doesn\u2019t like losing, and whenever I win, I\u2019m \u201ccheating.\u201d (Laughs.) \u2026 We always get pretty competitive, and her dad (Triple Eight Race Engineering founder Roland Dane) has been staying as well. And when we play together, it\u2019s mayhem.<\/p>\n

Is there a specific game you play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contract Rummy, I think it\u2019s called.<\/p>\n

4. What do people get wrong about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good question. I\u2019m not really sure.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t pay attention too much to what people are saying about you, I guess?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, not really. People who know me sort of get past that stuff. It\u2019s hard to know. I try not to read into that stuff.<\/p>\n

5. What kind of Uber passenger are you, and how much do you care about your Uber rating?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what it is. I don\u2019t Uber too much, but I normally just get in and sit on my phone and don\u2019t say a word. I\u2019m not a talker. (Looks up his rating.)\u00a0I\u2019m a 4.75. I normally only Uber when I\u2019m drunk, so I probably don\u2019t get good ratings.<\/p>\n

I gave a guy a bad rating the other day. He was talking too much.<\/p>\n

Oh, you just wanted to be in silence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, no. He was talking on his phone the whole time. It was annoying as s\u2014.<\/p>\n

6. I\u2019m doing a wild-card question for each person. I\u2019ve noticed you\u2019re running the Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway and having a Legend car team with Scott McLaughlin. Why did you decide to do this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just more racing. I went last year and watched, and it was super fun. Bubba (Wallace) looked like he was having a ball. Scotty and I talked about it, and it\u2019s three mates going racing.<\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s just fun, and then it\u2019s more reps as well like for short track stuff. I\u2019ve never really done that. It\u2019s just more time on track, learning how to bump and run, get bumped and hold position.<\/p>\n

Still a lot to learn. These guys have been doing that sort of stuff since they were 10 or 12, you know? I feel like I need to make up in those areas.<\/p>\n

So you feel like you can apply some concepts from Legend cars to NASCAR?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, 100 percent. Just car placement on entry \u2014 it\u2019s kind of like Martinsville or something like that \u2014 restarts, doing the choose (rule) the right way. It\u2019s a lot of fun, but I feel like I learn something, too.<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen\u2019s win Sunday was his second Cup Series win in the past month, and his second victory in three editions of the Chicago Street Race. (James Gilbert \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

7. I\u2019ve been doing these 12 Questions interviews for 16 years, so I\u2019m going back to an older one, and re-asking a question. In 2017, I was asking people: \u201cWhat is your middle finger policy on the racetrack?\u201d So what is yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only just started doing it because we\u2019ve got windows (in the cars) at home. It\u2019s quite fun here doing it. There\u2019s a couple of drivers, we do it for fun at each other. But yeah, I actually did it (in Michigan) at someone. They were racing me like an idiot and then put their hand out at me. So I passed them and then did it back.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s pretty rude, though. I don\u2019t want to do that all the time. You only do it when people deserve it, I guess. Or for fun.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for us to really see it watching on TV, but you can obviously see when people are doing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, a lot of it is polite. You know, just people saying thank you if you let them go or whatever. But you can see some people just put a sly finger out, and then I guess when they\u2019re really angry, the whole hand comes out. (Laughs.) It\u2019s quite funny, because you can\u2019t express yourself in other racing because you\u2019ve got the window. It\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

8. Other than one of your teammates, name a driver who you\u2019d be one of the first people to congratulate them in victory lane if they won a race.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bubba is one of the guys I\u2019m getting closer to. I always get along with him, and I\u2019m happy to see him do well. We\u2019ve been starting to race each other a bit more, which is good for me, I guess. So probably him.<\/p>\n

Is it just doing the Legend car stuff with him? Or why have you guys become friendlier?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just the friend circle with Scotty. He hangs out with Scotty a lot, and that\u2019s how you get to know him a bit. Had him around home a couple of times.<\/p>\n

9. How much do you use AI technology, whether for your job or your daily life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to use it more and more. Jess hates AI, but I love it. I\u2019ve started designing cars and trying to get anything I can do. Like I got a little Mazda I\u2019m doing up, so I talked to ChatGPT about ideas for that and wheel sizes and stuff. So I think it\u2019s amazing tech, and what it\u2019s going to be able to do in the future.<\/p>\n

This is probably going to get us in s\u2014 with the Twitter (now X) people, but we designed our team logo (for Legend cars at the Summer Shootout) on AI. It came out pretty funny.<\/p>\n

10. What is a time in your life you felt was really challenging, but you feel proud of the way you responded to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2012, at the end of that year, I was out of racing. I wanted to stop, and I sort of did stop. And then Dad really convinced me to keep going, and we changed teams. It was a big legal s\u2014 fight, and I ended up joining another team. It was really bad publicly, but I was able to just knuckle down and focus on my driving.<\/p>\n

There was so much outside noise and legal s\u2014 going on, and then I went out and won the first race with a new team. So it was really cool to just go out there and push through that. It was messy, but great.<\/p>\n

How did you make the decision to not quit? What was the one factor where you were like, \u201cOK, I do want to keep doing this?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I love racing. It was just a bad time and a lot of s\u2014 going wrong. The team (Stone Brothers Racing) had sort of gone bad; they changed ownership, and \u2026 I didn\u2019t want to drive there. They were changing manufacturers (from Ford to Mercedes), doing it a completely different way that you knew wasn\u2019t going to work \u2014 which I was right, they ran terrible. And I just was like, \u201cI\u2019d rather not race than drive for this sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I went about it the wrong way, because I was too shy publicly and let the team say all my words. They made out that I had depression, and they made out like I was backstabbing them and stuff. I was open with all the people, but the way it got twisted publicly sounded bad for me. So I really wish I was more forthright publicly to let people know what was going on, especially fans and stuff, because they got the wrong side of the story. But it worked out well in the end.<\/p>\n

11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take this sport to the next level of popularity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been around long enough to see, like when people talk about the big years in the 2000s. But to me, I\u2019ve felt like the sport has grown the last couple of years I\u2019ve been here, and I feel like there\u2019s hype around it. Coming to Mexico, I feel like there\u2019s a lot of positivity around the sport. So I feel like it\u2019s growing since I\u2019ve been here, but I don\u2019t know the past.<\/p>\n

12. Each week I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last one I did was with Chase Elliott, and his question is: What is the No. 1 habit from road course racing and your background growing up that you feel works against you in oval racing and that you feel has hurt you, but you are trying to break it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably the fact I take my time. (In Supercars) we have long practices. We have multiple sets of tires I can play myself in and build up (to) get better and better. And then in qualifying we\u2019d get the same. We get three sets of tires to maximize the car.<\/p>\n

Whereas now I go to a track (in NASCAR) and you get 20 minutes, one set of tires that only lasts for two laps and you\u2019ve got to go out and find a second in qualifying. You have one lap, one corner to warm up your tires and feel what your car is and do it. Whereas normally, you can build up.<\/p>\n

The next interview is with Alex Bowman. Do you have a question I can ask him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a fellow car enthusiast, what is your dream JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car and why?<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Shane van Gisbergen after his win Sunday in the Chicago Street Race: Chris Graythen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1833,1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-51239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-motorsports","9":"tag-nascar","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114822988892593159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51239","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=51239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}