After his second victory of the 2026 season—at Sonoma Raceway in late June—Shane van Gisbergen was 36 points above the cut line for the Chase.
Practitioners of conventional wisdom deemed it unlikely for the New Zealander to stay there, given that eight oval tracks remained in the regular season, and given that among NASCAR Cup Series drivers, van Gisbergen had far less experience on ovals than any of his peers.
Nevertheless, with only Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 left in the regular season, SVG remains 31 points ahead of 17th-place Ryan Preece, with a realistic possibility of making the Chase.
Van Gisbergen is justifiably proud of the accomplishment.
“I think pride’s a good word, yeah,” he said. “I think we’ve really improved this year. It’s been great to match my teammates (Ross Chastain and Connor Zilisch) on ovals…
“I thought, leaving the West Coast, we had a really painful San Diego. We should have had a 40-50 point day, and we had a two-point day or something. That was very painful. Pretty pumped that we’ve been able to keep that gap (in points) and to relatively hold it at that level since Sonoma has been really, really cool.”
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