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Van Gisbergen in love with manic Martinsville

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: April 7, 2024

Shane van Gisbergen got his first taste of the intense style of racing around Martinsville on Sunday and loved it.

The half mile “Paperclip” produced its usual chaos with the NASCAR Xfinity Series race full of spins, bump and runs and crashes.

Van Gisbergen emerged from it all with a strong 11th place, his third best result of the season, which is enough to keep him in the Playoffs race in 13th in the championship.

It was a solid comeback from the Kiwi who was around 20th at the start of the final stage having already experienced the brutal nature of Martinsville with a close shave from a multi-car pile up which brought out the red flag.

But SVG made some smart moves in the final stage to progress to the top 10 in overtime and crossed the line 11th, his third best result of 2024 only behind P3 at Atlanta and P6 at Phoenix.

Reflecting on his first taste of racing around the unique Martinsville half mile bullring, van Gisbergen loved the aggressive, door-banging style of racing and revealed he and Kaulig Racing bounced back from a late issue.

“That was some of the most fun racing I’ve had!” van Gisbergen wrote on social media.

“Really enjoyed Martinsville. We got better and better every stage except the start of stage 3 when we had a little car issue and I put myself in some bad spots so we dropped back.

“Once I learnt how to drive around it we came back through a few. The end was crazy but I had a ball with the WeatherTech team and looking forward to Texas.”

Van Gisbergen returns to the “Lone Star state” next weekend to race at Texas Motor Speedway for the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at 3.30 AEST on Sunday, April 13.

Photo by John K Harrelson / NKP / LAT Images

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