What, indeed, about Shane Robert Van Gisbergen?
I’ve always thought that Shane had a special gift AS WELL AS a unique mix of personality, motivation, and mindset to make the absolute most of it.
But seriously, the 31-year-old Kiwi’s three-from-three performance at the latest round of this year’s Repco Supercars Championship at a cold ‘n soggy Sandown (International Raceway) is just the latest in a frankly remarkable – and as far as I am concerned unprecedented – run of success which started, for the purposes of this particular piece, at the Supercheap Bathurst 1000 race at Mt Panorama in October last year.
Plenty has been written already about that lark so I won’t dwell on it – suffice to say that it was a textbook performance by a driver at the absolute peak of his game ably supported by a co-driver who probably still should have a full-time driving gig and a team with the exact same drive/need/desire to win as its driver.
Since then, of course Shane returned ‘home’ to ‘our’ side of the Tasman after finishing third in the 2020 series point standings behind fellow Kiwi Scott McLaughlin and young Aussie Cam Waters.
In theory the idea was to have a break, to ‘get away from it all’ so that he could return all bright eyed-and bushy tailed eaarlt this year to whatever the Aussie Government’s COVID-19 planning was going to allow the organisers of the now Repco-backed 2021 Supercars Championship Series to come up with.
If you know Shayne though you will realise that he’s not exactly the ‘head to the Coromandel or Marlborough Sounds with a good book’ kind of guy.
So, it was no surprise when he rocked up at the Rally of Auckland event only days after his two-week Managed Isolation stay was over in his Dad Robert’s gorgeous ground-up rebuilt RS1800 MK 2 Ford Escort.
Actually, that’s not 100 % correct. While I wasn’t surprised that Shane was keen to do the rally, what surprised me was that his Dad – Cheese – loaned him his only just finished (gorgeous, rebuilt etc, etc) Mk 11 Ford Escort RS1800 to do it in!
The answer, of course, came just the next day when I was one of a limited number of spectators (from memory the crowd was capped at 5000) to witness Shane win the inaugural Repco Battle of Jack’s Ridge rallysprint event, behind the wheel of a contemporary ‘Choice-built’ 4WD AP4-spec Mitsubishi Mirage on loan from local Mitsi dealer Andrew Sims.
Then, of course, came the run-up to Christmas, and with it the news that Shane had signed up to do a season of Midget class racing.
“Excellent,” I thought, “…wonder how long it will take before he wins his first heat race!”
However, I – and I am sure thousands of other fans – was left to ponder that particular thought – after Shane’s current boss and pay master, Roland Dane, questioned the decision on ‘what if?’ grounds and Shane agreed to quietly drop the idea.
For now, anyway!
Which just leaves the New Zealand Grand Prix meeting at Hampton Downs.
In retrospect we should have all seen Shane’s stunning ‘from-behind’ win coming…after-all getting your name on the NZIGP Trophy has always been seen as a rite of passage for our brightest and best young drivers.
Indeed, had he spent more than a solitary season (2006/07) in the Toyota Racing Series first time around he might well have been a repeat winner this year.
As it was, he not only won the NZGP title race he completely dominated it, using a simple but potentially race-ending mistake (pushing the onboard fire extinguisher button instead of the starter) to – or so it seems to me – to give himself an extra dose of motivation.
I was actually reminded of Shane’s ability to shine under even the most extreme of pressure at Hampton Downs on Sunday when I spotted the tall, lean frame of his father Robert towering over a Formula Ford on the dummy grid.
The car – a 1983 Van Diemen – looked just like the one Robert bought and ran for his son to run in and win the NZ Formula Ford title in 2006.
Not quite, said Robert.
He and Shane have indeed bought that car back. The one he had at Hampton Downs however, was a second Brett Lupton-modded Van DIeman-based Stealth car he and Shane have bought to help ‘bring on’ promising young drivers like current pilot Matthew McCutcheon.
Though it pains me to say that I cannot remember whether he won the race or not (surely someone out there can jog my memory!!) the first time I witnessed what I suppose you could call this ‘fightback phenomenon’ was at the first round of the 2005/06 NZ Formula Ford championship at the annual V8 Supercar Championship meeting at Pukekohe Park Raceway in October or November of 2005.
Shane was in a gaggle of cars in the leading bunch as the packed Formula Ford field streamed into the high-speed Turn 1 ‘sweeper.’
My memory tells me it was halfway through (the sweeper) that Shane’s distinctive powder blue, Trade Parts-backed car was squeezed up onto the inside curb and into a gentle spin.
Looking at the track today however I think I might be confusing the sweeper for the first right hand curve and (quite high)kerb of the Castrol complex.
Whatever. The result was the same, by the time he had his car back on the track and pointing in the correct direction again Shane Robert Van Gisbergen was lonely motherless last while the rest of the field was half to three-quarters down the looooog back straight.
Sure, he was probably pissed with himself for what happened. If anything, though it just made him even more determined to get back up to the pointy end of the field.
Fast forward to the latest round of the now Repco-rebranded Supercars series and a fortnight before – what for any other driver would probably have been a disaster – out riding his Mountain Bike Shane fell…and broke his left collarbone.
Rather than – with his good arm, obviously – throw his toys out of the pram, however, Shane sought both professional treatment AS WELL AS the opinions of some high-profile fellow sportspeople who have sustained similar injuries – like Paris-Dakar bike section winner Toby Price and Supercross legend Chad Reed.
Included – obviously – was some good old surgery plating and screwing the two pieces of collarbone – to start the healing process, plus physio and some time in a hyperbaric chamber.
The latter might raise the eyebrows of some but effectively is a simple treatment whereby by breathing concentrated (pressurised) oxygen your body’s natural healing process is given a boost.
Having won both races at the opening round of the 2021 Repco Supercar Series back at Mt Panorama in February breaking a collarbone just two weeks out from the second round at Sandown would have got the drums beating alright…and when he qualified back in P17 for the first of three races this past weekend at the old-skool suburban Melbourne circuit many of his competitors I am sure, were circling for the kill.
His amazing drive from P17 to P1 in the first race of the weekend has already gone down in Aussie Touring Car history as the greatest win from the furthest back (or some such). What really stood out however was the respect the Giz’s drive engendered from his fellow drivers, many of whom – not two hours before – had, no doubt about it, written him off – this weekend anyway – as an ‘easy-beat with a broken wing.’
However, as second-placed Cam Waters said afterwards; “Massive kudos to Shane for what he has achieved with his shoulder. He deserved that race. He did everything he needed to do.”
Which – when you think about it being his left collarbone – meant every gear change and every roll bar setting change and not on a wide, smooth as silk track surface like that, say, at The Bend.
Hell no. As befits a former international venue which has been in constant use for 59 years Sandown is a rough, patchy narrow old goat track of a circuit with some curbs you have to hit hard and others you to avoid like the Plague.
Particularly if it is damp and cold like it was over the weekend.
Come Sunday and Van Gisbergen made it quantifiably easier on himself when he put his Red Bull Ampol Holden Commodore on pole for both races.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
In the first race he got out front and stayed there; while in the second he extended his winning 2021 Repco Supercars Championship run to five with another superbly measured race win on a sopping track – this time – from rookie Jake Kostecki and veteran David Reynolds.
Which would rate in anyone’s book as an impressive feat for an able-bodied Van Gisbergen.
For one with a broken collarbone still in the early stages of repair though?
Honestly it boggles my mind.
What about yours?
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