Shane van Gisbergen expected New Hampshire Motor Speedway to be a positive day for the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing team. He ran strong there last year before a wreck, and led the organization with a fifth-place qualifying this past weekend.
The race started in an unusual way, as NASCAR bolted on the wet-weather tires to go racing on a damp track. Van Gisbergen quickly emerged as the fastest driver in those conditions, taking the lead from William Byron and setting sail.
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At one point, his lead was approaching seven seconds when NASCAR called a competition caution for teams to switch back to slicks on the drying surface. He still had the lead, but not for long.
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports, Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports, Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing
In ‘normal’ conditions, the Trackhouse cars faded and Van Gisbergen fell from first to ninth by the end of Stage 1. In Stages 2 and 3, he never saw the top ten again.
At the end of the day, Van Gisbergen finished 20th while both of his teammates DNFed (Connor Zilisch crashed and Ross Chastain suffered an engine issue), losing 19 points to the cut-line in his battle to make the Chase. Entering Daytona, he will have a 31-point buffer over Ryan Preece in the driver standings while the No. 97 holds just a six-point buffer in the owner standings.
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“Tough day for what we needed, being that fast on wet weather tires and falling back so far on the slicks shows that we are missing something,” said Van Gisbergen after the race. “Hopefully there are some learnings on that because Connor (Zilisch) and I just went backwards as fast as we could when the track dried. It’s just a disappointing way to end the day.
“We would love to have more of a cushion heading into Daytona, but the No. 60 (Preece) did a great job today. I don’t think the No. 2 (Austin Cindric) gained much on us, but we would love to have more heading into a big unknown race next weekend.”
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