Shane Van Gisbergen Q&A With Athlon Sports

In terms of being a NASCAR driver, was there a moment where you felt like you belonged here in that regard?

I wouldn’t say there was a moment but it certainly built up to where I feel like I belong and am in the right place. I can’t pinpoint a moment, really where that set in, but I do feel like I’m in the right place for my life and career right now.

What is your daily driver car?

I have a (Chevrolet) Tahoe and it’s awesome.

Was that your choice; did you have options?

Yeah, I have a Silverado back home and the Tahoe is basically the same with a roof on it.

Outside of your Kaulig or Trackhouse Racing teammates, is there anyone you have befriended that you have become close to?

No, not really, but I feel like everyone here is really cool and easy to get along with, which is obviously very hard when you move across the world. In racing, it’s good, because you see so many people every weekend, but I still find myself talking to Kevin (Harvick, agent) and Marcos (Ambrose, former Cup driver and Australian Supercars export). They’ve been like my main people to rely on for coaching stuff. But yeah, I find all the drivers are pretty cool to get along with and (I’m) getting to know a few.”

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Was it Justin (Marks, Trackhouse team owner) that was your connection to Kevin and Kevin Harvick, Inc.?

Yeah, I struggled when I first came here, when it came to getting a manager and an attorney. You need an accountant and all that stuff and I have no understanding of that kind of thing. My dad handled all that stuff back home but my mum was sick at the start of the year, and it was hard for him to do it without knowing anyone here, so I needed that support network, which I didn’t have. I don’t know anything so yeah, Kevin and Josh (Jones, KHI vice president) were a great help when I needed to get everything set up.

You always say racing every week is your favorite thing about being here but is there something about the racing that you love, too?

I like the fact you’re always battling, like the race at Bristol, you’re always battling and it was the best racing I’ve ever had. It was like being on the limit the whole time, no matter where you are in the field, you’re always battling someone. At the end of the race, 18th wasn’t great, but the track was awesome. My car wasn’t the fastest, but it handled good, so I had a blast. But also, I love that every week is a different track, a different challenge, and if you sucked, you move on to the next one and try to figure it out for next time you come to the track. There’s no repetition in NASCAR.

When you talk about battling for every spot, is that not common in Supercars?

I haven’t had a boring race here. Like, there is always someone to battle and always something happening due to the stage cautions. Races are not allowed to get strung out because a caution will bring everyone right back together. In circuit racing, you get some snoozers, where you just ride in seventh or eighth and it’s a ways back to ninth place or whatever, so you just ride around all race… with stage cautions … there is always action in NASCAR and you can never relax.

Do you prefer the Cup car or the Xfinity car?

I really did like the Cup car, because it feels like every other racecar in the world that I’ve driven and then I got in the Xfinity car and I just had no idea what was happening. It drives like a forklift, the way the rear end moves and how it drives, but if you speak to all the drivers here, they say the opposite, that they like the Xfinity car. There is so much funky s— happening with the rear end. It’s wild what these guys here have come up with even though it’s more regulated than it used to be.

But next year, I’m looking to just being in the Cup car every week and understanding what it takes to make lap time. That car also just makes more sense to me compared to the Xfinity car.

Even if the Next Gen car is more familiar, does that help you on ovals?

Good question. I don’t really know. I certainly hope so. The 1.5-mile (tracks) are probably my biggest weakness, just because of the speed, how the air works and how the cars move around. Like, if someone gets to your right side in the Xfinity car, it gets you loose and I never felt anything like that in racing before. The Cup car feels more normal. It’s not as sensitive to front and rear downforce loss. That’s been helpful.

There are so many different kinds of ovals: short tracks, intermediates, and superspeedways. Which type of track do you enjoy the most now?

Yeah, I like the medium sort of ovals like Dover, Darlington, and Nashville. It’s a smaller track so you’re always racing someone and the track changes and makes you move around to make speed. Darlington changed so much throughout the day as it took rubber. Then, with Dover, the concrete made it so fascinating because you can see the rubber, and I have never driven on a tire that hates itself like at Dover. Every other car I’ve driven, you want to be (in the) rubber because that is where the grip is. But at Dover and Nashville, it was the opposite. You watch the track get black, and you try to move around and avoid the rubber, and then the caution comes out and we pick it right back up. Then the green comes back out and we do it all over again.

I’ve never seen anything like that before this year. I’m used to tracks getting faster as the week goes on but in NASCAR, it gets slower with the rubber, and it’s the weirdest thing.

What would make next year a successful season?

Same as this year — just have fun and enjoy every week. Obviously, you want results. It’s a results-driven sport that we have so I want to be up front. But if I’m having fun and learning, I’m sure the results will come, too.

What have you been told about the history of the No. 88 between Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jarrett, Darrell Waltrip, and Buddy Baker?

I’ve learned about it now and respect it a lot. It’s apparently a massive number here. In Australia, my teammate was (seven-time Supercars champion) Jamie Whincup and he is the GOAT of the sport. His number was 88. I spent years trying to emulate what he did and looked up to the No. 88 so that number means a lot to me already. It’s really cool to represent it because I understand what it means to both sports, yeah.

Do you enjoy the contact element of NASCAR since it’s frowned upon back home?

I see pluses and minuses. For example, at Martinsville, I loved this track until the green-white-checkers and then everyone lost their mind and stopped using their brakes. It became the stupidest thing I’ve ever been a part of in racing.

You become the brakes at the end of races at Martinsville. We call it ‘eight tires turn better than four’ here.

It was just too far. Then you see stuff like the Trucks race at Homestead where (Conner Jones) took it too far, and he got punished for it. But then, that same weekend, me and Austin Hill had a really good battle, which I thought was cool, because we had some drama earlier in the year but in NASCAR, you just get on with it and move on.

I kind of like how self-policing it is. It seems like, if you end up wrecking with someone, you’re racing them seven days later so you have to have a short memory. But those races like Martinsville in the playoffs, it’s awesome to watch but not to be in the middle of it.

You mention the playoffs, and Supercars has basically adopted something very similar to what NASCAR has now. How do you think that is going to go?

I don’t know. I looked at their stuff a little bit (and) how they’ve done it. It doesn’t have the pressure. Like, you’re not going to see what happened at Richmond with Austin Dillon where a win would have made his entire year because it locked him in. I don’t think Supercars has win-and-you’re-in so it’s not quite the same. I don’t think you’ll see the same kind of desperation. It’s going to take consistency, so I think you will see guys settle for results, rather than going for the win. They’re going to go for the points because you can’t afford to have bad days so it could make the racing worse because everyone is just points racing.

Like, we needed to win the (Charlotte) Roval after what happened to us at Talladega, so it made us desperate because our backs were against the wall. I think that is what makes NASCAR exciting because you have some teams going for the win and others are points racing. You get a little bit of everything.

I don’t think there are a lot of paved ovals left in Australia, right?

There was just one, Calder Park in Melbourne, but it’s been closed for a long time.

Do you think a NASCAR/Supercars doubleheader on an oval in Australia would be cool?

I don’t know, but Calder Park did have massive crowds and events back in the day when there were drivers doing the crossovers like Dick Johnson and Jim Richards. They came down here and did some races too and gave us a lot of exposure.

And then there’s Marcos (Ambrose) so if there was the right track, especially with me doing it, I do think there would be interest. There’s a long way to go to get NASCAR-style oval racing to that level there.

What are your offseason plans?

I’ll go back to New Zealand in December and I’ll do some speedway racing there. That’s what we call our dirt racing. I’ve got some races lined up in a Sprint Car and I’ll be back here in mid-to-early January.

So, no Chili Bowl this year? I know Trackhouse wanted to make that happen.

Not this year because I really want to get in some Late Model races to keep getting better on ovals. I do want to do the Rolex 24 again someday. That’s my favorite endurance race.

Your boss, Justin Marks, owns a Late Model series with Dale Jr. and Kevin Harvick, the CARS Tour. You attended the race at Florence, S.C. What did you think about that? I imagine there’s nothing like it back home.

It was incredible. I wanted to be out there so bad. I couldn’t believe the track (Florence) didn’t have walls and you could just drive off the backstretch and come back on the track if you didn’t hit the trees. If you got mad at someone, you could just punt them off into the forest. That would be a lot of fun, and it was an awesome race to watch. The small town races here are something incredible.

What do you think of the American racing culture overall?

I reckon it’s really good and there is so much variation, but I found it a lot of fun and relaxing. You’re always racing here. You have a bad day and it’s just on to the next one. Racing in Europe and Australia, it’s not that I’m not professional, but it makes you have to be overly professional. You can’t slip up or make mistakes.

Here, I’m finding that everyone just wants you to be yourself and appreciates you for it. There’s always some fluff and bulls---, even here, but American racing is more about getting results and having fun. That’s pretty cool.

Last one for you. I have to ask how your metric to imperial conversion process is going.

The thing I’m stuck on now is fractions … fractions! They don’t make any sense. I don’t understand for the life of me why I would say 11/16ths of an inch. That makes no sense to me. But I’m starting to convert pretty well, the small fractions, so I’m starting to get better after a year of it.