Shane van Gisbergen will make his fifth NASCAR Cup Series start at Darlington (S.C) Raceway as he lines up for the Cook Out Southern 500. His best finish at the 1.366-mile track came earlier this season when he qualified 33rd and drove his #97 Chevrolet to a 14th-place finish, earning his second top-20 at the track ‘Too Tough To Tame.’
Van Gisbergen will make his CARS Tour Series debut Friday night at Florence (S.C.) Motor Speedway competing in the Late Model Stock Car class behind the wheel of the #51 Red Bull Chevrolet for Hettinger Racing on the 0.4-mile paved track.
Last weekend Van Gisbergen and the No. 97 team entered Daytona 31 points above The Chase cutline and narrowly missed clinching the 16th and final position after the No. 60 of Ryan Preece claimed the victory.
“The reality is that we have struggled a bit, but I’m happy on the No. 97 side, personally, to have matched Ross (Chastain),” commented SVG. “We know how good he is on the ovals, and I think I’ve made a big jump this year to be able to match him most weeks.
“Obviously Connor (Zilisch), as well, is a huge talent, so to be comparable to those guys has been really cool for me this year. There’s a lot of hard work going on, but we definitely need to improve if we want to have that opportunity at making it (The Chase) next season.
“The season is not over yet, but I’m proud that I’m closer to my teammates on ovals. I’ve managed to have a pretty good year. Obviously, I want us to do better as a team, and as team we aren’t quite there yet. But we’ve made good improvement on the ovals, which is important.
“I guess we can try things now, take a bit more risk and just have some fun, low stress. But also work to do the best we can and learn more about what we need out of the car at certain tracks and prepare for next season.”
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