Shane van Gisbergen Goes Back-to-Back at Sonoma

Shane van Gisbergen pre-race at Sonoma for the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200. (Photo: Aaron Brink | The Podium Finish)

SONOMA, Calif. — After winning at Portland a week ago, Shane van Gisbergen once again entered Sonoma as the favorite as he looked to win back-to-back races in the NASCAR XFINITY Series.

Van Gisbergen showed why he was the favorite during qualifying by winning the pole award by over three-tenths over the field.

That speed also transferred over to the race and after some tough battles, van Gisbergen was able to win the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 for his second win of the season.

“Firstly, got to thank these guys so much, Kaulig Racing,” van Gisbergen said during his Fox Sports interview post-race. “Our WeatherTech Camaro got beat up again, but man what a race, an adventure up and down all day.”

On the way to the victory, van Gisbergen won Stage 1 and finished second in Stage 2, leading a race-high 32 laps. SVG also earned 59 points and six playoff points, which moved him up to 10th in the regular season points standings, and now ranks fourth in playoff points with 11.

On the final restart with 11 laps to go, Austin Hill led the race and van Gisbergen lined up in second. Going into Turn 2 SVG got to the inside of Hill and drove hard into the turn, even getting into the dirt before making contact with Hill’s No. 21 car.

The contact pushed Hill wide, dropping him back to fifth place and allowed van Gisbergen to run away with the win.

Shane van Gisbergen sitting by his car pre-race at Sonoma. (Photo: Aaron Brink | The Podium Finish)

“But that last restart I was just giving it all I had and two guys going for the same real estate came together,” said van Gisbergen. “It was pretty awesome though, a lot of fun. Hope everyone enjoyed the show. Pretty awesome back-to-back weeks for us.”

Hill, who led 21 laps and finished in fifth place saw the incident differently but claimed to take the “higher road” in his Fox Sports interview on pit road.

“I’m gonna leave it to the keyboard warriors on this one. I’ll let them figure out what happened,” said Hill. “No matter what comment I say, it’ll be wrong.”

“I plead the fifth, I’m not going to say anything about it. We’ll just go on to the next one, good hard racing. We were holding off SVG for a while, had that caution and I knew it was going to be tough on the restart and it didn’t work out. But we had a good points day and finished in the top five. You can’t ask for more than that.”

Today’s biggest threat to beat van Gisbergen was the former Xfinity Series champion, Ty Gibbs. After leading 26 laps and winning Stage 2 Gibbs had a slow pit stop that put him in the back for the restart to open the final stage.

On that ensuing restart a big pileup occurred mid-pack that collected 13 cars in total and ended Gibbs’ day.

Shane van Gisbergen driving during qualifying at Sonoma Raceway where he would go on to win the Pole. (Photo: Aaron Brink | The Podium Finish)

Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer, rookie Austin Green and Hill rounded out the top five. Justin Allgaier, Chandler Smith, John Hunter Nemechek, Cole Custer and Parker Kligerman concluded the top 10.

With the ninth-place finish, Custer was able to remain the points leader by 12 points over both Hill and Smith going into next weekend’s race at Iowa Speedway

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Shane van Gisbergen
2. AJ Allmendinger
3. Austin Hill
4. Parker Kligerman
5. John Hunter Nemechek
6. Chandler Smith
7. Sammy Smith
8. Anthony Alfredo
9. Parker Retzlaff
10. Riley Herbst

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Ty Gibbs
2. Shane van Gisbergen
3. Jesse Love
4. Sheldon Creed
5. Cole Custer
6. Chandler Smith
7. John Hunter Nemechek
8. Parker Kligerman
9. Justin Allgaier
10. Parker Retzlaff

Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200 at Sonoma Raceway Results