New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen witnessed a final lap heartbreak when a commendable effort went down in vain. The Ag-Pro 300 Xfinity race at Talladega Superspeedway had all the drama stored, especially in the later laps. The No. 97 Wendy Camaro driver momentarily took the lead in the Xfinity race, positioning himself as a contender for the win. However, as the race progressed into overtime, SVG’s promising fourth-place start in the top lane quickly turned sour. The #97 Chevrolet unexpectedly ran out of fuel at the commencement of the green flag. Hence, it shattered his chances of victory, relegating him to a dismal P22 finish.

Shane van Gisbergen’s take on the Talladega heartbreak

After the race, Frontstretch reached out to the Kiwi driver for his take. Instead of being downcast, which would have been justified, van Gisbergen answered all the questions with a smile on his face. The driver talked about how fuel woes ultimately caught up to him. At the same time, he made sure his frustration didn’t take over his spirit as he talked about how exciting the race was.

SVG said, “Yeah, once I took off it just didn’t go, but it was pretty awesome day, Wendy’s Camaro was good. Later lap was pretty exciting. And battling up the front, I had fun and I felt a lot more comfortable than I have at Daytona for example. And yeah, it was making some moves and instead of just riding and felt really cool.”

Furthermore, SVG also dissected his run and honestly confessed his mistakes too. “It just was phases of the race like the first stage was pretty boring just riding around half throttle. And then the second stage was the complete opposite. It was madness almost the whole way so that was pretty cool and yeah, just certain points and learning who to work with, who to not. And I made a mistake in stage two thinking someone would follow me they didn’t. And I went straight back so yeah, still learning every lap basically,” he added.

In the initial overtime restart, the race became chaotic. Jesse Love, in the #2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, clashed side-to-side with Parker Kligerman in the #48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet in their battle for the lead. Eventually, Josh Williams in the #11 Kaulig Chevrolet lost control on their outside, and Sheldon Creed from Joe Gibbs Racing also spun out following contact with Sammy Smith in the #8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. This entanglement of leaders set the stage for a dramatic finish. Having said that, the battle is not yet over for van Gisbergen as he’s set to run at the Talladega track on Monday in NASCAR’s top division.

van Gisbergen is off to a good start for Sunday.

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For the Cup Series race at the same venue, SVG will be starting P17, which is certainly a good enough position. Looking for his second Cup Series win, the driver will definitely need to work around the Next Gen car. Talking about this very aspect, the former Supercars champion expressed uncertainty about the different driving dynamics of the cars. He also noted that there is a significant difference between the cars in qualifying and the race.

Acknowledging that he was starting further up the grid than he had anticipated, SVG mentioned that he would be starting in the middle and was curious to see how it would go. Talking about the Next Gen car, SVG said, “Their car drove way different. But they say in qualifying to race those cars are pretty different. So yeah see what it’s like tomorrow. Try and learn I’m probably a bit further up than I wanted to be. I’m starting right in the middle so see how we got.”

Despite the setback with his fuel in the Xfinity race, SVG capitalized on the double overtime to execute a quick pit stop on Saturday. Finally, he managed to climb back to 22nd place by the end of the race. Interestingly, he started off at 17th in the Ag-Pro 300 as well. Having experienced the track a bit more than others in these two consecutive days, can he capitalize on it and place himself in an advantageous position?

It would be interesting to see how the Kiwi driver ends up performing in the Cup clash, driving alongside prolific drivers. The expectations are indeed high from him.