Shane van Gisbergen has taken another huge step in his oval journey, finishing third after starting nineteenth in the Craftsman Truck Series race in North Wilkesboro.
Van Gisbergen dropped down to twenty-first by lap three, with the field keeping it clean on the short oval. Out front, Chase Elliot and Christopher Bell started to battle it out for fifth, with Carson Hocevar in the lead.
The first caution was brought out on lap sixteen after Donovan Strauss spun, but kept it out of the wall and was able to keep going. The field soon racing on lap nineteen.
At this stage, van Gisbergen sat in twentieth and started to bounce between nineteenth and twenty-first. Hocevar started to battle it out with Layne Riggs out front, with Bell now sitting in third.
The Kiwi was able to make solid progress up to seventeenth by lap fourty, leading slightly ahead of Ty Majeski. In a relatively clean stage, van Gisbergen was able to finish the first seventy laps in eighteenth, while Riggs took the stage win.
As Stage 2 progressed, van Gisbergen started to make moves forward. He soon sat in sixteenth, which was the highest he had run so far.
Kaden Honeycutt soon started to encounter engine issues, dropping him down the field.
A relatively quiet stage 2 helped Hocevar maintain a comfortable lead until lap forty-eight of the stage, as Luke Baldwin spun and found the wall. Van Gisbergen and many other drivers headed into the lane for tyres and fuel, leaving the Kiwi in seventeenth with thirteen left in the stage.
Out front, Majeski, Smith, and Rhodes started to fight for the lead in a very close battle. However, the race was thrown on its head when Hocevar suffered a delaminating tyre, forcing him down the order. Majeski was able to hold on for the stage win, with van Gisbergen in fourteenth.
However, it was in stage three that van Gisbergen came alive. Starting the stage in tenth, the Kiwi had one-hundred and ten laps to make it work.
After twenty laps, van Gisbergen sat in ninth, behind Riggs and Bell. Out front, Smith led from Ruggerio. Fifty laps through the caution-free stage, the Kiwi sat seventh, behind Corey Heim.
His progress did not end here as he managed to climb to fifth, still sitting behind Riggs. Smith started to maintain a comfortable lead, leading by over five seconds with fifty laps left to run. With thirty-four laps left, van Gisbergen had soon worked his way past Ruggerio.
Van Gisbergen soon started to close up to the back of Eckes, who sat in third. With eighteen laps to go, van Gisbergen was able to make a move around the outside – meaning the Kiwi now sat in the top three.
The Kiwi soon started to pull away from the driver behind, as Smith now held an eight-second lead. Although Riggs started to try to chase him down, it was too much as Smith took a record winning margin on a short oval track in the Craftsman Truck Series – in a race uncharacteristically clean.
Van Gisbergen was able to control his final laps to bring home a thrilling third place – making his equal best result on an oval in any NASCAR series, and his equal best result in the Truck series.
Elliot finished in seventh place, ahead of Bell in fifteenth – with Hocevar finishing in a lowly twenty-seventh after his issues earlier onn.
Although SVG is not eligible for championship points from this race, it marks another great step in his oval journey this year.
