Shane van Gisbergen anticipated New Hampshire Motor Speedway to be a optimistic day for the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing staff. He ran sturdy there final yr earlier than a wreck, and led the group with a fifth-place qualifying this previous weekend.
The race began in an uncommon manner, as NASCAR bolted on the wet-weather tires to go racing on a moist observe. Van Gisbergen shortly emerged because the quickest driver in these circumstances, taking the lead from William Byron and setting sail.
At one level, his lead was approaching seven seconds when NASCAR known as a contest warning for groups to change again to slicks on the drying floor. He nonetheless had the lead, however not for lengthy.
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports, Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing
Picture by: Sean Gardner / Getty Pictures
In ‘regular’ circumstances, the Trackhouse automobiles pale and Van Gisbergen fell from first to ninth by the top of Stage 1. In Levels 2 and three, he by no means noticed the highest ten once more.
On the finish of the day, Van Gisbergen completed twentieth whereas each of his teammates DNFed (Connor Zilisch crashed and Ross Chastain suffered an engine situation), dropping 19 factors to the cut-line in his battle to make the Chase. Coming into Daytona, he may have a 31-point buffer over Ryan Preece within the driver standings whereas the No. 97 holds only a six-point buffer within the proprietor standings.
“Robust day for what we would have liked, being that quick on moist climate tires and falling again to this point on the slicks exhibits that we’re lacking one thing,” stated Van Gisbergen after the race. “Hopefully there are some learnings on that as a result of Connor (Zilisch) and I simply went backwards as quick as we may when the observe dried. It’s only a disappointing strategy to finish the day.
“We’d like to have extra of a cushion heading into Daytona, however the No. 60 (Preece) did a fantastic job right now. I don’t assume the No. 2 (Austin Cindric) gained a lot on us, however we might like to have extra heading into a giant unknown race subsequent weekend.”
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