There was a massive show of force on the international stage this weekend, and it didn’t have anything to do with bombing Iran or Donald Trump’s birthday party. Kiwi Shane Van Gisbergen put on a masterclass in car control on Sunday afternoon at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit smack in the middle of Mexico City, taking the win in NASCAR’s first points-paying race outside the United States since 1958. When NASCAR runs a road course event with rain in the forecast, you’d be absolutely silly to bet against an SVG victory, because this guy knows how to hustle one of these big machines left and right. Van Gisbergen took his second Cup series victory at the track by over 16 seconds at the finish, the largest margin of victory in any NASCAR race since 2009. And he did it under the vengeful eye of Montezuma after having, uh, issues acclimating his stomach to the Mexican biome.
As soon as SVG climbed out of his car the broadcast booth had a microphone in his face to ask him about the trouble he overcame to secure this win, saying “you faced so much adversity this entire weekend, when you think about it; the travel issues, not feeling well before the race, and then the rain today.” To which Van Gisbergen replied in his typically frank NZ candor, “Oh, you listed them all, man. What a week! I’ve really enjoyed myself here. I felt pretty rubbish today, um, leakin’ out both holes, that wasn’t fun.” I’ve been there, man, vomiting and diarrhea on race day definitely isn’t fun. In addition to the tummy trouble, SVG had to deal with horrible flight delays getting in to Mexico on Friday when his plane out of CLT was sidelined with mechanical issues. Many series regulars and personnel were stuck in Charlotte with him, so NASCAR pushed Friday practice to Saturday and he arrived not long before he was scheduled to be in the car. It’s really been a whirlwind weekend for the winner.
It just takes patience
After rain fell on the first lap of the race and everyone pitted to switch to rain tires and deal with drying conditions and tire wear. In hindsight it’s obvious to see that SVG just ran the table for the entire race, even when he wasn’t leading. The naturally talented road course ringer and NASCAR Cup rookie and his Trackhouse Racing team ran the perfect strategy and hung back with the field to manage tires for most of the race, then ran as fast as possible in the closing run to the flag to stretch his lead out to one of the highest margins of victory in modern NASCAR history. At certain points in the closing laps SVG was running as many as six seconds per lap faster than his top competitors. Once the checkered flag fell SVG went and gave the crowd a proper Antipodean hooning smoke show.
Couple this with Daniel Suarez’ win on home soil in the Xfinity Series on Saturday, and it appears to be the first NASCAR race weekend without an American-born driver winning in the history of the series.
