“I feel like we’re just incrementally gaining and learning something every week.” These words came from Shane van Gisbergen two weeks ago. And they should have rung alarm bells for his Cup Series competitors. Entering the 2025 Cup Series season, SVG’s condition was dismal on ovals. His average finish was 30th over the first half of the year. However, the tides started to change and have now culminated in a magnificent victory.

The Legend Pro Feature races are in full swing in this year’s Summer Shootout. Last weekend, Kevin Harvick’s son Keelan clinched a win at Charlotte, with SVG close at his heels in runner-up. In just a week, nobody expected the Kiwi speedster to learn the ropes so soon.

Shane van Gisbergen is a studious racer

Well, all the evidence strongly testifies to this. During his time in Australian Supercars, Shane van Gisbergen collected 80 race trophies, three championships, and three Bathurst 1000 wins. In barely two years of exploring NASCAR, he is hailed as a road racing god, clinching 8 wins out of 16 starts. Now, the Kiwi speedster is studying day in and day out to improve his stats on ovals, the bread and butter of core NASCAR. For that purpose, he had been spending his Monday and Tuesday nights tackling Charlotte Motor Speedway’s quarter-mile track. Fitting his gigantic structure inside a small Legends car, SVG started where most of his rivals began their oval racing careers as children.

And despite the baby steps, Shane van Gisbergen learned the ropes quickly. He won the Pro Legends A Feature, wheeling the No. 97 car to a 0.417-second finish over seasoned driver Jake Bollman. This marked SVG’s first oval victory at Charlotte. When asked how much this helped in his oval lessons, SVG said, “Oh, it hasn’t hurt it. It’s been fun, I obviously learned some skills, and Joe Ryan and his team they’re great teachers. It’s just time turning left for me, it’s what I need.”

Jake Bollman was hot on SVG’s heels for the final few laps. The 22-year-old ARCA Menards Series driver is pursuing the Legends Pro championship title this season. SVG tipped his hat to his young rival for a courteous face-off: “It was fun, it was one of the cleanest races up front I’ve seen. Really enjoyed it…Had some good battles, racing with the 71 – I think he won the championship too, so congrats to him. Yeah, we raced clean. At the end, he had the opportunity to move me, and he didn’t. So it was a lot of fun, my first oval win.”

Shane van Gisbergen is toppling the dominoes, one at a time. This pace of exhilarating success elicited heartfelt praise from his home turf’s star.

Going into the nitty-gritty of racing

Shane van Gisbergen has a special way of dominating road courses. That is his right-foot braking, which has long been his standard back home in Supercars. It makes him the perfect candidate for the street circuits and road courses of NASCAR. According to four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy, that is quite the norm back in Australia and New Zealand. “The funny thing is, it’s all normal for us — for people down here that have been racing touring cars and Supercars and the likes,” he said. However, he did emphasize SVG’s dominance in Supercars as well: “Shane did master it in Supercars probably more than most people. He’s taken this technique to the US and he’s got all the locals completely bamboozled with it, which is quite funny.”

What dazzled Greg Murphy even more was SVG’s steady progress on ovals. With his latest Legends win at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Kiwi is proving his relentless drive to win a Cup Series oval race. Murphy said, “The oval side of things is just such a massive learn for someone who hasn’t grown up doing that kind of stuff. I think he’s making really good progress, and he has opened some eyes…He’s a guy that wants to race every week, and now he’s got that wish. He’s racing nearly every week and just immersed in it, and it suits his style. Long may it continue.”

Evidently, the road ahead looks bright and happening for Shane van Gisbergen. We can only count the days until the Kiwi speedster drops a banger with another, bigger oval race win.