DAYTONA BEACH — Shane van Gisbergen’s meteoric rise from Australian road racing champion to NASCAR winner has required he learn seemingly the simplest and most fundamental aspect of oval racing.
“Turning left,” he deadpanned. “It’s difficult, for sure.”
The 36-year-old native of New Zealand similarly struggles to fathom that he has turned a one-off opportunity into five wins in 39 starts on the Cup Series, including four in 2025 to tie future Hall of Famer Denny Hamlin.
“It’s just amazing how it worked out,” van Gisbergen told the Orlando Sentinel this week. “Never planned to do more than one NASCAR race. It snowballed, and now we’re here.”
Van Gisbergen enters the the Coke Zero Sugar 400 Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway firmly in the playoffs as many veteran drivers scramble for two available spots in the 16-car field, currently held by Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman.
A victory on the sport’s most unpredictable track, where multi-car crashes and a two-lap overtime periods often decide the winner, would earn a spot in the playoffs for former Cup Series champions Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 2021 500 winner Michael McDowell and former Coke Zero Sugar 400 winners Chris Buescher and Erik Jones.
Meanwhile, van Gisbergen aims to play it safely and keep his No. 88 Chevrolet ZL1 intact, while working with fellow Trackhouse Racing teammate and 2025 winner Ross Chastain to usher Daniel Suarez across the finish line and into the playoffs.
“One of our teammates is in a must-win situation,” van Gisbergen said. “Ross and I have to help him, but also we don’t want to get involved in a crash before the playoffs start. So, it’s a bit of a Catch-22 at the moment.”
Van Gisbergen himself wrestled with uncertainty when team owner Justin Marks invited him to drive in the Chicago Street Race as part Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 to give drivers from other racing circuits a taste of NASCAR.
The Auckland native with three Supercars Championships (2016, 2021, 2022) Down Under had never been to Chicago or faced a similar level of competition. Yet, experience won out as van Gisbergen became the first driver to win his Cup Series debut since Indy Car legend Johnny Rutherford in 1963.
Van Gisbergen made just one more NASCAR start in 2023, finishing 10th in the Brickyard 200 on the Indianapolis Speedway’s road course. In 2024, he moved to North Carolina to join NASCAR full time, driving a full 33-race schedule on the Xfinity Series and making a dozen Cup Series starts before joining full time in 2025.
Timing and van Gisbergen’s talent have proved to be winning combination amid the sport’s push for a more diversified schedule. All eight of his wins, including three Xfinity victories in ’24, have come on road courses, making him the driver to beat away from ovals.
“It’s what I’ve sort of grown up doing and been used to all my life,” he said. “I’ve been lucky driving for a great team this year. Every week, we’ve sort of executed. I’m just sort of riding the wave and having fun.”

NASCAR decision-makers modified the 2021 season to include seven road races, up from three in 2020 when the format captured fan interest in a sport hungry for more.
Speaking to the Orlando Sentinel at the time, Hamlin questioned the thinking, given the sport’s oval-track ethos.
“We’re overreaching a little bit with our road-course stuff,” he said.
While van Gisbergen has capitalized, he pushes to prove he’s no-one trick wheelman.
He is 4-of-5 on road courses this season. But has an average finish of 26th in 20 appearances on ovals.
“There’s 30 good guys who can win on a weekend,” he said. “It’s one of the deepest fields of talent I’ve ever raced in. Normally only you only have two to eight guys in most series that can win, let alone three-quarters of the field.
“It’s tough to be on top of your game every week.”
Van Gisbergen is getting there.
A 14th-place finish last weekend in Richmond, Va., tied for his best showing on an oval and was his fifth top-20 in 10 races after he managed just one top-20 in his first 10 trips to oval tracks.
The strong showing in Richmond even earned praise from Hamlin, the city’s native son, one of the sport’s all-time greats and an established road-course skeptic.

Van Gisbergen mimicked Hamlin’s gear-shifting technique and drove a more aggressive line on .75-mile oval, leading Hamlin to call his efforts, “very innovative” on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast.
The driver best known as “SVG” believes he’s just starting to figure out how to turn left while moving forward.
“We just got to keep going,” van Gisbergen said. “We’ve been on a constant trajectory that’s upward, and it’s been fun to be part of that. Who knows what will happen in the playoffs? But if we get it right, we might go far.
“We got to keep improving.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at [email protected].
Coke Zero Sugar 400
When: 7:30 p.m., Saturday
Where: Daytona International Speedway
TV: NBC and Peacock
Radio: Sirius/XM Ch. 90
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