NASCAR’s highly-anticipated street course race weekend in Chicago seemed like it was doomed to be remembered for the wrong reasons, when heavy rain and storms cut Saturday’s Xfinity Series race short and delayed Sunday’s Cup Series race.
Enter Shane van Gisbergen, the New Zealand Supercars driver making his first career Cup start in the Grant Park 220.
Van Gisbergen qualified third for the event, and ran in the top five for much of the first half before a pit strategy shakeup cycled a number of drivers to the front who had been running deep in the field.
That put the Kiwi driver mired back in traffic, but he was able to drive his way to the lead by passing Justin Haley on a restart with only five laps to go. Another caution forced the race to be extended by two more laps, and van Gisbergen pulled away from the field to take home the stunning upset victory.
He’s the seventh driver to win in his Cup Series debut, but the first of NASCAR’s modern era. The last time a driver won in his first career start at NASCAR’s top level was in 1963, when Johnny Rutherford won a Daytona qualifying race.
Some will claim that van Gisbergen’s win is a bad look for NASCAR and its drivers to have an outsider come in and beat all the series regulars without any prior experience. However, the amount of potential new interest the sport will receive — which was already very high this weekend — now becomes even greater.
Anytime NASCAR can make headlines that don’t involve a massive crash or an off-track controversy, it’s a good thing for the sport. And most importantly of all, now nobody will be talking about how rain ruined the series’ first-ever street course race.
Shane van Gisbergen will be the talk of the auto racing world this week, and rightfully so.