Soniony, California (AP) – Shane van Gisbergen proved in his Nascar debut as an elite gone and street job …
Sonioma, California (AP) -Shane van Gisbergen proved in his Nascar debut as an Elite Road and Street Course Racer by winning in his first career outing.
Two years later, his rivals looked at the technique of De Nieuw -Zeelander well and he declared him the favorite to win on Sonoma Raceway on Sunday. He will start with the post for the second consecutive week and third time in five races.
“It’s pretty great, we had a very cool few weeks,” said the Trackhouse Racing driver. “It’s so cool how stunning everyone is and you feel the energy in the store when you enter. It’s just a cool atmosphere in the store, everyone is lifted.”
Van Gisbergen is on a two-race-winning series on the specialist courses after victories on the road in Mexico City (where he won 16.6 seconds against the post) and last Sunday in the streets of Chicago (again from the post). He has five consecutive finishes from the seventh or higher date back to Watkins Glen International last September.
“He is so good and it is rare that you notice someone so much and distance yourself from the competition,” said Kyle Larson, last year’s winner in Sonoma. “He is a lot, way, much better than we are on the road.”
The secret, has learned his rivals, is a teen heel brake technique that none of them can control.
“If I tried to learn what he is doing, it would cost me until I retired,” said Kyle Busch.
Larson added: “You can’t learn old dog new tricks. There is no chance that I can learn how to do that.”
Van Gisbergen, who won in Sonoma last year in his Xfinity Series debut and started with the pole Saturday in that race, will make his cup debut on Sunday on the picturesque song in the wine country of North California.
He is defeated, Denny Hamlin said, but it will not be easy for every driver to stop Van Gisbergen’s dominance.
“I think you need things not to go his way, and then someone will really have to touch it,” said Hamlin. “That will probably be a challenge for me. Warnings can turn things upside down. He is defeated, only at speed, but I would say downright pace? No.
In addition to the way Van Gisbergen brakes, Hamlin praised the way in which the kiwi approaches the courses.
“His approach to how he attacks certain angles seems to be the thing we are more reactive,” said Hamlin. “I am more reactive to see how someone is approaching a corner to go quickly. He is proactive and knows how to approach it, so he is better and faster before I am. And by the time I get closer, he refines his technique and goes even faster.”
Not an apology offered
Joey Logano had little to offer on his current feud with Ross Chastain. It warmed in Chicago last week when Chastain Logano spun in a retaliation movement that Logano sent to Nascar to demand punishment for a deliberate action.
Nascar has not punished Chastain and the two drivers have not spoken since the post -trace confrontation of Sunday.
“We didn’t talk,” Logano said Saturday. “It is what it is.”
Logano didn’t want to talk about Chastain.
“He made his choices. I’m just going to race on my car,” Logano said.
What is concerned? He claimed that “there are three sides to every story.”
“I think many people met the last few laps,” said Chastain. “That’s what I saw.”
Bubba and Bowman, meanwhile?
Bubba Wallace tried to solve his frayed relationship with Alex Bowman as soon as they arrived in California earlier this week.
The two had an incident in Chicago for the second consecutive year and had other run-ins in the past. After the last substance, Bowman said that the two still had problems.
“I thought we had picked our beef, but we clearly didn’t do that,” said Bowman in Chicago.
To prove Bowman that they had indeed moved, Wallace said he saw Bowman in a restaurant in Napa Valley, approached him from behind and wrapped him in a hug in Beren. He later paid for Bowman’s dinner.
“I told him that I was curving it like an idiot,” Wallace said about his driving in Chicago. “I apologized. I was over for a few days. So I bought him a meal. It felt good.”
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