Just hours after a high-profile day on the big stage, Scott McLaughlin retiring from the IndyCar race in St. Louis and Shane van Gisbergen winning the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City, the two Kiwi stars were back in action at Charlotte Motor Speedway for Round 2 of the Cook Out Summer Shoot Out in the US Legend Car Series.
McLaughlin had a full day of racing, competing in multiple heats where he finished 5th, 9th and 3rd before qualifying 12th for the A-Feature race.
Van Gisbergen, fresh off his historic NASCAR victory, flew in from Mexico and arrived at the track just in time for the A-Feature. With no qualifying time, he started from the back of the grid in 20th.
Despite starting from the back of the field, he launched into an all-out charge from the green flag, slicing through half the pack in just the first half of the race. He overtook teammate McLaughlin, dodged a multi-car incident, and climbed as high as seventh.
But with seven laps to go, he was caught up in another pile-up, and contact on the following restart brought his night to a premature end. He was classified 17th with a DNF.
McLaughlin, meanwhile, recovered to finish a strong sixth in the feature despite being spun by Keelan Harvick with 12 laps to go and getting caught up in the same late-race chaos.
Danny Chisholm took the feature victory ahead of a chaotic multi-caution race.
Racing resumes tomorrow with Round 3 of the Summer Shoot Out.
Header Image: Russell Ingall (Facebook)
