Rivals put favourite’s tag on van Gisbergen 

The “animal-like” Shane van Gisbergen is the raging favourite to go back to back according to his fellow NASCAR rivals ahead of this weekend’s Chicago Street Race.

Not only Trackhouse teammate Ross Chastain, but also Penske’s Ryan Blaney believe van Gisbergen is the man to beat and are even unsure if he is beatable on the street course.

The Kiwi used his many years of Supercars skills to blow the collective brains of the NASCAR world by storming to a stunning win on debut at the first ever Chicago Street Race last year.

Van Gisbergen was down in 18th during the run home, but flew through the field in mixed conditions in the #91 Trackhouse Racing Camaro to make history despite hardly driving a NASCAR before.

Chastain feels that SVG is such “an animal” on road courses, he will still be a cut above the rest having also taken two NASCAR Xfinity Series wins since.

“He is an animal when it comes to road courses and we’ve seen that with his two Xfinity wins already this season. He’s that good,” he said.

Chastain also revealed both he and fellow NASCAR Cup Series winner and teammate Daniel Suarez have taken a back seat to van Gisbergen, who is leading the team’s Chicago preparation.

But he is unsure if the data from last year’s wet race will correlate much to 2024 where mostly sunshine is forecast.

“Well, he’s a machine when it comes to preparation,” Chastain said of van Gisbergen. 

“I would say he’s kind of leading the charge for us in the simulator and getting it how he thinks it will be. 

“But, the streets up there will have changed and we’re all honest with each other that the simulator is a tool. At least I’ll have that to go off of though. 

“Last year, I’ll be honest, that I didn’t put enough stock in his simulator prep but this year I definitely have.”

Even reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney is unsure if van Gisbergen can be beaten with four Cup Series and 17 Xfinity Series starts since that famous debut.

“I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting to see,” Blaney said. 

“Obviously, he’s really talented. I’ve been enjoying watching his inaugural Xfinity season. 

“He’s a good guy. I’ve gotten to talk to him a good bit, and he loves the sport and really enjoys it. 

“I don’t know if he’ll have as much of an advantage this year because everyone was kind of in the same boat last year as far as first time there, but he raced on a lot of street courses, and the V8 (Supercars) stuff and the rain and all that craziness that went on. 

“He probably had a little bit of a leg up on everybody and it showed, and he took advantage of it and won the race. 

“Hopefully, we can all draw a little bit closer to him at that place to where he doesn’t embarrass us like he did last year. We’ll see, though.”

However, Penske teammate Joey Logano believes the gap between van Gisbergen and the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series field should be much closer this time due to the latter being a “fish out of water” last year.

“I don’t think it will be as much of an advantage (if it doesn’t rain), but there’s no doubt that street courses seem to be his wheelhouse,” Logano said. 

“There’s no doubt he’s good on road courses as well, like the typical road courses. 

“He’s great at those as well, but it did seem like a street course he felt way more at home when we all felt like a fish out of water going around that race track. 

“Then you added rain. It was perfect for him and he capitalised as he should. For 99% of the field that was the first time for any of us to do anything like that and we all have very limited experience of racing in the rain.

“We also had a lot to lose where he had nothing to lose. 

“Like, you look at those walls and it is like, whoa, there are a lot of points in those walls. For him, who cared? 

“I think all those things weighed into it for sure (but) I think this year, now that we all have a general idea of what we’re going into, we can prepare for it. 

“It’s hard to prepare for something when you’re blind and you don’t know what it’s going to be like. 

“I’m sure he’s still going to have a lot more experience with this stuff than we do, but I think we’ll close the gap a lot.”

The 2024 Chicago Street Race will be held at 6.30 AEST Monday morning.

Photo by Rusty Jarrett / NKP / LAT Images

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