SONOMA, Calif. – New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen powered his way to the lead on a restart with 11 laps remaining in Saturday’s Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 on the Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway road course and bolted off to a 1.323-second victory – his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series win coming only a week after his first.
The 35-year-old Kiwi — who earned his first career pole position earlier Saturday at the 1.99-mile course and led a race-best 32 laps — took the lead from Austin Hill negotiating a tight turn seven on a late-race restart; his No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet winning a battle of tough side-by-side action that ultimately cost Hill four positions.
Both drivers acknowledged the close racing — the second time this season they have had contact racing for the late race lead at a road course. At Circuit of The Americas (Texas), they collided racing for the win on the last lap only to see NASCAR Cup Series regular Kyle Larson bolt by to claim the victory over them both.
“Man, what a race – an adventure up and down and up and down all day,” said Van Gisbergen, who, as he did in Portland, celebrated his win by signing a rugby ball and kicking it into the grandstands.
“But that last restart I was just giving it all I had and two guys going for the same real estate came together.
“It was pretty awesome though, a lot of fun. Hope everyone enjoyed the show. Pretty awesome, back-to-back weeks for us.”
Hill, who led 21 laps and finished fifth in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, was clearly displeased with the contact between himself and Van Gisbergen, but insisted on taking a sort of racing “high road.”
“I’m gonna leave it to the keyboard warriors on this one, I’ll let them figure out what happened,” said Hill, as he watched the replay on the track’s big video screen. “No matter what comment I say, it’ll be wrong.
“I plead the fifth, I’m not going to say anything about it,” he continued. “We’ll just go on to the next one, good hard racing. We were holding off SVG for a while, had that caution and I knew it was going to be tough on the restart and it didn’t work out. But we had a good points day and finished in the top five. You can’t ask for more than that.”
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Sheldon Creed finished runner-up to Van Gisbergen, the ninth second-place finish for Creed in the series and second of the 2024 season. JR Motorsports’ Sam Mayer was third with Jordan Anderson Racing rookie Austin Green fourth and Hill rounding out the top-five.
It marked the second top-10 finish in three career starts for the 23-year-old recent college graduate Green and was particularly impressive considering he started 22nd.
It was another young driver, former Xfinity Series champion Ty Gibbs, who looked to be among Van Gisbergen’s toughest challengers early in the day. He led 26 laps but a slow second pit stop dropped in the field for the Stage 2 restart and he was among 13 cars collected in an accident in Turn 2 that eliminated several top cars.
The other NASCAR Cup Series regular in the field, John Hunter Nemechek, was sixth in a JGR Toyota with JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, JGR’s Chandler Smith, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer and Big Machine Racing’s Parker Kligerman rounding out the top-10.
“It was the work we did between weeks to make the car better again,” said Van Gisbergen, who also took the Stage One victory for his first career stage win.
“It was awesome racing Ty Gibbs at the start, we were really pushing each other. It’s special to win two road courses in a row and dream about one day winning on an oval.”
Custer’s eighth-place finish was good enough to keep a 12-point championship lead over both Hill and Chandler Smith.