Shane van Gisbergen is more than just a road course ringer, and he proved that with a 5th place at North Wilkesboro Speedway. He was the best Chevrolet driver, rising above the likes of Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Ross Chastain. He’s got the road course figured out and is slowly catching up to short-track racing, but there’s one NASCAR configuration he feels needs a lot of work.

“I am still weak on intermediates. I think that’s probably my lowest rank.”

Shane van Gisbergen was honest about his areas for improvement. The New Zealander feels that intermediate tracks continue to be the most difficult test of his NASCAR education, even though his recent oval performances have silenced many naysayers. But he clearly needs to work on finding his feet at intermediate tracks like Las Vegas and Kansas. In the last 10 starts at this style of track, he’s only managed two Top 10s. Four laps down, finishing 36th at Las Vegas, a similar finish at Kansas later this season.

Now, we all know Trackhouse as an organization is struggling to find consistent speed, but SVG seems to be their best bet at the moment to take them to the Chase. Thanks to the good points day at North Wilkesboro, SVG climbed to 14th in the points standings, two spots from the cutline. And they need to keep this run going as 1.5-mile speedways are going to take up a big chunk in the post-season battle for the championship.

As far as his chances to win last Sunday go, he felt he didn’t have the pace or the balance to compete against Logano, but he does find short -track racing more natural, thanks to his braking style.

“I tried to right-foot braking for a bit. Half of the race, I right-foot braked and I just feel comfortable doing that. It’s a real balance track and you can really effect the car with your driving technique, so I felt comfortable doing that.”

Even when he got the command of the race, the Kiwi driver didn’t know what to do. “When I took the lead, I got pretty excited; I didn’t know what to do. Just amazing to get stage points in both stages. I threw it away (lead) in the last corner on the first stage, but it’s awesome racing up front.” For a driver who was just labeled a road-course ringer, he sure has come a long way.

Now, the important thing for the No. 97 team is to keep their focus on upcoming races at Indy, Iowa, and Richmond. The good news for them is that they still have two short-track races before the penultimate regular season finale at Daytona. At this point, SVG’s qualification into the Chase is a more achievable goal for Trackhouse than putting the resources behind the other two struggling teams.