Shane van Gisbergen led Trackhouse Racing with a 11th-place finish in the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Sunday afternoon with teammates Ross Chastain finished 16th and Connor Zilisch credited with a 26th-place finish.
“It was an awesome day,” commented SVG. “Starting up front, the racing flows much better and cleaner.
“Ran in the top 10 all day but just lacked grip and was weak on restarts. The 97 team brought a fast SuperFile Chevrolet, just wish we could’ve gotten a top 10 result. Collected some stage points and had a lot of fun! Great progress heading into the off weekend.”
Van Gisbergen started from the fifth position, his best career qualifying effort on an oval and was able to maintain position the whole stage, finishing sixth and collecting stage points. The No. 97 team came to pit road at the stage break and van Gisbergen started the second stage in the seventh position.
During the stage, van Gisbergen fought the handling of his SuperFile Chevrolet and dropped back a spot, finishing the stage eighth.
In the final stage, van Gisbergen started seventh, but lost three positions on the restart trying to find his groove in the bottom lane. The No. 97 team opted to come to pit road on lap 268 and rejoined the field 23rd but ultimately cycled back to the second position. Van Gisbergen battled to maintain position while weaving through lapped traffic.
On lap 325 a caution flew, van Gisbergen went on to restart the final 75 laps in eighth but struggled to hold position, dropping out of the top 10 for the first time in the race and eventually took the checkered flag 11th.
The NASCAR Cup Series will take one weekend off and return to action Sunday, April 12 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee.
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