Ever since his arrival on the NASCAR scene, Shane van Gisbergen established himself as a track specialist, now fondly called the road course king. With five consecutive road wins to his name, he awaits one more to match the record of one of NASCAR’s greatest ever drivers, Jeff Gordon. It’s something the Kiwi is confident of achieving, and he thanks the modern NASCAR calendar for it.
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Shane van Gisbergen is all set to match Jeff Gordon
In a recent interview with PRN Live, van Gisbergen shared his thoughts on the road course record and how he looks to reach Jeff Gordon’s tally of six consecutive wins. Banking on how modern NASCAR comes with six road course races on the calendar, SVG said:
“Very different time. It was probably only three races a year when he did it, now we got five or six, so, but yeah, we had an amazing year last year, so, and we’re going to a place I haven’t won before either, so that would be cool to do it.”
It’s not often you have the chance to tie @JeffGordonWeb in the history books. 📖@shanevg97 looks to match Gordon’s SIX consecutive Road Course wins record this weekend at @NASCARatCOTA 🤯
He’s also searching for his FIRST Cup win at this race track 🔎 pic.twitter.com/bFr0ydPs4t
— PRN (@PRNlive) February 28, 2026
Notably, Gordon has nine road course race wins in his tally out of 93 wins. And six of them have come consecutively between 1997 and 1999 at the Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International.
As SVG mentioned, securing back-to-back wins during Gordon’s time was regarded as a hard nut to crack, given the calendar at the time only had three races per season, compared to modern NASCAR, which features six races a year, putting SVG at an advantage.
In 2025, SVG won five back-to-back races in Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and Charlotte. Winning here at the Circuit of The Americas will not only put him up with Gordon, one of NASCAR’s Greatest ever drivers, a Hall of Famer, and four-time Cup Series champion, but also bring him his first ever win at this track.
Even though he started in 13th position, Shane van Gisbergen has already moved up and finished Stage 1 in second place. Coming off the O’Reilly race win on Saturday has definitely given him that boost.
Shane van Gisbergen wins O’Reilly race in his second outing
Shane van Gisbergen started his Circuit of the Americas race weekend at Austin with a bang after the New Zealand driver claimed the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win on Saturday. Driving the #9 Chevrolet Camaro for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports, the 36-year-old picked his fifth O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win and his second on the track.
“Yeah, good to finally execute,” SVG said after the race. “We had an awesome day. Thank you to Safety Culture, JR Motorsports. Pit crew was awesome. You know, the strategy worked out well, and I wondered what was going to happen on that last restart, and I kind of sucked the #41 [Sam Mayer] in, and he took everyone out for me. So, that was cool.”
Having started from second place, behind teammate and pole sitter, Connor Zilisch, van Gisbergen was down to ninth place by the end of Stage 1. He recovered to fifth place in Stage 2 before winning the race in the last stage.
SVG’s victory was a visual treat for many as the JRM star passed five drivers — Nick Sanchez, Justin Allgaier, Sammy Smith, Jesse Love, and Sam Mayer — to win the race in style. Austin Hill and Sammy Smith finished the race in second and third positions, respectively. With that said, it will be interesting to see if SVG manages to pull off another miracle, this time in the Cup Series.
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