The legend of Shane van Gisbergen continues to grow when the NASCAR Cup Series goes road racing. Even when an alternate strategy forced him to lose all of his track position, van Gisbergen mounted an incredible charge through the field to win Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen.
Here are four takeaways from the Go Bowling at The Glen:
Shane van Gisbergen puts together epic drive to win at Watkins Glen
Since van Gisbergen officially announced his arrival in the 2023 Chicago Street Race, he has dominated the field on road courses, including his 11.1-second win over Christopher Bell in the 2025 race at Watkins Glen.
However, Sunday’s race produced another level of dominance from the New Zealander. Van Gisbergen led a race-high 74 of the 100 laps, but after electing to stay on the track while the majority of the field pitted under the race’s final caution with 40 laps to go, a green-flag stop with 25 to go put his hopes of winning the race in jeopardy.
Even after facing a 29-second deficit to the leaders, van Gisbergen quickly chased down Ty Gibbs and Connor Zilisch for the top spot, making the winning move around Gibbs with eight laps left to win his second consecutive race at Watkins Glen, his first race of the season and the seventh of his career.
Gibbs and Zilisch had a memorable battle for the lead until van Gisbergen’s arrival, but neither one had any chance to fend him off. When the dust was settled, van Gisbergen followed up his massive margin of victory from last season with a 7.2-second advantage over Michael McDowell, which was good for the fourth-largest margin of victory in track history.
Richard Childress Racing has encouraging performance
Entering the weekend, the RCR organization only had one top 10 the entire season. Watkins Glen provided the silver lining that drivers Austin Dillon (sixth) and Kyle Busch (eighth) needed after a pair of top-10 runs.
Dillon has historically struggled on road courses, while Busch has endured a crew chief change, a late-race encounter with John Hunter Nemechek at Texas and a nagging sinus cold at Watkins Glen. Some solid, drama-free runs from the two is exactly what RCR needed to stop the bleeding.
Hendrick Motorsports leaves Watkins Glen scratching its head
William Byron led the HMS organization in qualifying (13th), but neither of the four drivers had anything to be pleased with coming out of Upstate New York.
Byron’s day spiraled out of control when contact from Chris Buescher sent him around in the bus stop on the Lap 44 restart. He never recovered after damaging his right-rear toe link and finished 36th.