Van Gisbergen has career night at North Wilkesboro

Shane van Gisbergen was comfortable and confident enough Sunday night at North Wilkesboro Speedway to have a lighthearted moment seconds after taking the race lead.

“I’m leading,” he said on his Trackhouse Racing team radio. “What the (expletive) do I do now?”

It was a rhetorical question and a comedic moment for all who were listening. Van Gisbergen, of course, knows how to lead NASCAR races, but doing so on an oval is still relatively new to him. At the time, he had driven to the race lead around championship point leader Denny Hamlin.

“I was just having fun,” van Gisbergen said after ultimately finishing fifth. “It’s pretty cool to get up front and then be able to pass for the lead genuinely. We just have to enjoy ourselves.

“I’m pretty pissed I blew the tires off it and lost the lead on the last corner, but it was cool to be up there.”

Van Gisbergen led four different times for a total of 49 laps. It is the most he has ever led in a Cup Series race on a traditional oval, his previous record being 12 laps at Nashville Superspeedway at the end of May. And it was the fifth oval race he had ever led laps in, excluding the drafting tracks.

“It was an awesome night. Pretty cool to get the lead, and I just wasn’t good enough on the long run,” van Gisbergen said. “But had a lot of fun. Thanks to Wendy’s and Trackhouse. Everyone on the team did a great job. A good points day, which is what we really need.”

The performance netted van Gisbergen 47 points, which were the third-most of any driver. As a result, he moved up one spot in the Chase standings to 14th.

Van Gisbergen started eighth and averaged a fourth-place running position. The car had a strong rolling on the bottom of the racetrack, and van Gisbergen stayed married to that line most of the night.

He also brought a familiar driving approach to North Wilkesboro and found success.

“It’s a bit like a road course here,” he said. “I tried right-front braking for a bit – half the race, I right-foot braked – and I just feel comfortable doing that. It’s a real balance track, and you can really affect the car with your driving technique. So, I felt comfortable doing that.”

At the end of the night, van Gisbergen was one of six drivers still on the lead lap.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said. “I saw that 22 drive off, and I was like, ‘I hope I don’t see him in the mirror.’ He was fast. He took off really measured and looked after his tires. Yeah, he was really, really good.”

The top-10 finish was the seventh of the season for van Gisbergen, which has tied his single-season high from last year.