The bigger shock would have been if Shane van Gisbergen hadn’t won. Because at this point, beating SVG on a road course is a bit like trying to outrun a hurricane with a lawn chair. You can try. People will admire the effort. But eventually you’re going into a ditch.
The only hope anyone had Sunday at Watkins Glen was to do something wildly different from NASCAR’s undisputed road course assassin. Gamble. Cheat the strategy. Pray for chaos. Maybe sacrifice a goat somewhere behind the bus stop. And even then, it turned out to be utterly pointless.
SVG led 74 of 100 laps from the pole, grabbed a stage win for good measure, and crossed the line 7.2 seconds ahead of the field looking like a man who’d accidentally wandered into a lower division.
And somehow, that still wasn’t the strangest part of the afternoon.
A caution on lap 61 triggered mass hysteria on pit road. Nearly everyone behind van Gisbergen and Michael McDowell dove for tires and fuel, desperately trying to trap the Kiwi on old strategy. SVG stayed out and led until lap 75 when he finally pitted, handing the lead over to Ty Gibbs.
At that moment, common sense suggested SVG’s race was finished.
Common sense, however, clearly hasn’t met Shane van Gisbergen.
He rejoined the race in 24th, nearly 29 seconds behind the lead, then spent the next 18 laps carving through the field like a chainsaw through balsa wood. With seven laps remaining, he was back in front again. Which felt especially fitting considering NASCAR added 10 extra laps to this race for 2026, presumably because they thought fans might enjoy watching everyone else suffer for a little longer.
And the truly frightening bit? He sounded like he was enjoying himself.
“This is badass,” van Gisbergen radioed to his team during the charge back through the field. “I’m having fun.”
Which is exactly what you never want to hear from a man systematically dismantling an entire race field.
McDowell, on the same strategy, came home second while Gibbs hung on for third. Chase Briscoe and Tyler Reddick completed the top five after spending much of the day wondering what exactly they were supposed to do with this SVG problem.
After climbing from 27th back to second, even McDowell admitted SVG simply had another gear.
“There were moments where I thought maybe we could hang with SVG,” McDowell said afterward. “And it felt like he was just pacing himself back off me, and then he would take back off.”
Which is the racing equivalent of discovering the bear chasing you was only jogging for entertainment.
The first stage belonged to — who else — van Gisbergen. He led from the pole until diving to pit road on lap 18 just before the pits closed. By lap four, SVG and McDowell were already four seconds clear of the field. By lap five, SVG had stretched the lead to 2.6 seconds while McDowell was suddenly more concerned about Connor Zilisch filling his mirrors after charging from fifth to third like an over-caffeinated teenager late for school.
Ross Chastain, meanwhile, led the alternate-strategy brigade of drivers desperately collecting stage points like squirrels hoarding nuts before winter. Chastain won the stage ahead of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.
And because SVG apparently enjoys showing off, he still finished eighth in the stage despite pitting.
The new normal on a road course resumed at the start of Stage 2 when SVG and McDowell led the field back to green on lap 24. Zilisch slipped past McDowell for second on lap 27 while Chastain’s alternate strategy dumped him back in 20th.
Then Watkins Glen delivered a reminder that motorsports can be fundamentally ridiculous at times.
On lap 41, the caution flew because a dust devil picked up a tent from the infield, launched it into the air, and plopped it onto the racetrack like an unwanted Amazon delivery from the heavens. Perhaps it had been covering the aforementioned goat. At any rate, NASCAR reacted with the sort of mild panic usually reserved for escaped zoo animals.
A few laps later, most of the leaders pitted while McDowell and the top six stayed out gambling for track position. That worked about as well as investing your retirement fund in fireworks.
The restart on lap 43 turned into immediate carnage. William Byron got tagged by Chris Buescher entering the bus stop and spun, collecting damage after Ryan Blaney clipped the front of Byron’s car trying to escape the mess. Byron limped to pit road with a broken toe link and the sort of expression usually seen on men informed their boat has sunk.
SVG won Stage 2 ahead of Tyler Reddick. McDowell faded to 12th.
Then came Joey Logano’s latest contribution to what has become a beautifully miserable season. Running outside the top 20 on lap 61, Logano lost a right-front tire entering Turn 1 and skated off course, bringing out the caution and setting the stage for the strategy madness that followed.
SVG and Reddick stayed out while the rest of the contenders pitted behind them. The restart came with 37 laps remaining, and while van Gisbergen blasted back into the lead, everyone knew he’d eventually have to stop again.
Apparently, SVG himself wasn’t entirely convinced the strategy would work either.
“Stephen made great calls,” van Gisbergen said of crew chief Stephen Doran afterward. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. Then to run them down, very, very special.”
Special is certainly one word for it.
The scary thing for the rest of the garage is that van Gisbergen insists this whole thing isn’t easy anymore.
“Everyone is really good,” he said. “There was a lot of pressure there. McDowell was good, Connor was good, Tyler Reddick. There was a lot of good guys.”
Which sounds wonderfully humble until you remember he still beat them by seven seconds while apparently having the time of his life.
Ty Gibbs wound up third after spending the closing laps trying to save fuel while simultaneously watching SVG arrive in his mirror like an incoming missile.
“Honestly, just a little frustrating,” Gibbs admitted. “I wish we could keep racing, but unfortunately just had to save some fuel there.”
Translation: there may not have been enough laps left to stop SVG anyway.
Sunday’s victory was the seventh of van Gisbergen’s NASCAR career and his second straight at Watkins Glen. Just after climbing from the car he even booted a signed rugby ball into the grandstands because apparently humiliating the field wasn’t enough entertainment for one afternoon.
More importantly, the race reinforced what the rest of the garage already feared: on road courses, the man has become less competitor and more Marvel superhero.
Austin Dillon, AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top 10.
Oh, and for the record, there are still two more road courses remaining in the 2026 season.
Next up is NASCAR’s All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway. No points. Just money, a trophy, and 38 stock cars fueled entirely by bad decisions.
What could possibly go wrong?
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.