Shane van Gisbergen has won the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ The Loop 110 at the Chicago Street Course. The Kiwi led early and, again, led late to claim his third consecutive series road-course win and second race win on the 2.2-mile downtown Chicago streets.
Van Gisbergen and Californian Kyle Larson diced door-to-door, front fender to back bumper from the drop of the green flag and then van Gisbergen charged through the field to claim the lead again in the final laps.
In the end, the 35-year-old van Gisbergen got his No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet around Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs with two laps remaining and charged off to his series-best third win of the year by a healthy 1.287 seconds over Gibbs and Larson.
“That’s awesome, what a great race,” said a grinning van Gisbergen after kicking a rugby ball into the cheering crowd as is his established NASCAR victory celebration.
“It was pretty wild there at the end, but I can’t thank the Kaulig Racing guys enough. It was great racing to start with Kyle [Larson]. He was really good on the restarts and we made our car better with the second set of tires, but whooo, that was fun at the end passing all those guys. Had some great racing with everyone.”
Van Gisbergen who also claimed road-course wins at Portland and Sonoma led 14 laps as did Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love — most on the afternoon. Big Machine Racing’s Parker Kligerman finished fourth; his best result of the season and Love was fifth.
Van Gisbergen’s effort now gives him a series-best 17 playoff points and his three wins are the most in the series this year.
The Xfinity Series travels back east to Pocono Raceway for next Saturday’s Explore the Pocono Mountains 225.
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