WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.— Trackhouse Racing star Shane van Gisbergen returned to Watkins Glen this weekend and left his competitors in the dust, leading 74 of the race’s 100 laps en route to his first victory of 2026.
The New Zealander made his third start at the track from the pole position — a first for him at the 2.45-mile upstate New York road course — alongside Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell.
The two road course aces found themselves tied together with some sort of invisible string as McDowell trailed the 97 SuperFile Camaro for much of the event, only having the advantage over van Gisbergen during an exchange after the race’s second caution for debris.
When the Trackhouse team led by crew chief Stephen Doran brought their driver in for service, McDowell and a host of others stayed out with just eight laps to go in the second stage.
The gamble baffled onlookers as McDowell would inevitably lose the lead and — shortly thereafter — his ability to earn stage points as well.
The Kiwi kicked it into overdrive on the restart, mowing down McDowell within a matter of a few laps to take the stage 2 victory while the titular 71 car slid back to 12th. To make matters worse, it put him second on his strategy to Bubba Wallace.
Six laps into the next run, a caution for Joey Logano’s tire carcass on the backstretch sets up the ending of the race as van Gisbergen and 23XI racer Tyler Reddick stayed out under caution while much of the field came down for fuel and tires with 40 laps to go.
When the race went green with 38 laps to go, the top contenders on fresh rubber were not guaranteed to make it to the end of the event without stopping again.
van Gisbergen scampered away to a short lead over Reddick that grew as the stage went on before the second-year racer pulled into the pits on lap 75, ceding the lead to the first driver on the alternate strategy — Ty Gibbs.
Gibbs was not alone as van Gisbergen’s Trackhouse teammate Connor Zilisch rode in the Monster Energy machine’s tire tracks. The two energy drink-sponsored machines stayed 1-2 for much of the run with van Gisbergen hacking chunks out of the difference between them.
A lead that extended to 30 seconds when van Gisbergen got up to speed from pit road shrunk to a few seconds in just 15 laps. Zilisch received the green light from crew chief Randall Burnett to attack Gibbs for the win and pick up the pace.
In an attempt to do just that, Zilisch tested his right-front tire one too many times, and the fatal flat spot appeared to occur as the 88 Red Bull ride made a clumsy lunge on Gibbs into the bus stop that scared both drivers and failed to give Zilisch the lead — all while letting SVG close.
Though the end was all but certain, Zilisch bowed out early with a flat tire, rebounding from a flat tire with seven laps to go to come home 20th.
The focus fell sharply on Gibbs as the fourth-year driver was set up with the impossible ask to hold off the most dominant road racer in modern NASCAR history.
Gibbs’ battle was mature but brief, doing his best to hold off the best in the business on 15-lap older tire rubber for as long as he could before ceding the top spot to van Gisbergen for the final time on lap 94.
The 54 only dropped to third by race’s end while McDowell inexplicably wound up in second after a trying day from the 71 group in the pits.
Chase Briscoe and points leader Tyler Reddick took home fourth and fifth, respectively while Austin Dillon, AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top-10 positions.
Throughout the race, Fox Sports’ booth consisting of Mike Joy, Kevin Harvick, and Clint Bowyer missed or failed to recount multiple incidents late in the going while van Gisbergen cruised to victory, seconds ahead of his nearest competitors.
This included an incident between Katherine Legge and Josh Bilicki that provoked Tyler Reddick to bring his 45 Jordan Toyota down to pit road for service on lap 71 in anticipation of a caution that never came.
Another skirmish where top-10 finisher cleaned out Toyota teammate Bubba Wallace in turn 1 failed to be picked up, an incident that ruined Wallace’s day. However, what would be sensationalized was a pointless post-race conversation between Wallace and Christopher Bell.
Then, there were two incidents involving Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry. Granted, alternate angles have not been presented, so blame is not being placed at Berry’s feet for these incidents by any measure.
Heading into turn 6 with 13 laps remaining, Ware found himself on the outside of three-wide where he was bounced into the oncoming path of a tire barrier. Ware struck the barrier head-on, sending his 51 Chevy frisbeeing back onto the racing surface.
Though Ware was able to drive away from this incident, reports at the track indicated that the wall was damaged around where Ware hit the fence. Often, impacts such as these bring out the red flag at some races, but it did not produce a yellow flag today.
Finally, Berry got turned off the nose of Carson Hocevar in turn 1 on the final lap, dropping the 21 off of the lead lap and outside of the top-30 runners.
Fox Sports’ mishandling of this race makes one wonder, “If a fan tuned in for the first time, is there anything Fox is doing to keep a viewer’s attention? Do they care about the product they broadcast?”
Today’s race was, sadly, not indicative of a team that cares about the product.
NASCAR’s officiating (or lack thereof) deserves scrutiny as well. While their hesitance to throw cautions has been rightfully praised this year, this same issue with Cody Ware played out the same way at Chicago last year when the 51 lost its brakes and plowed into the barriers.
In a series where we deem that there have been too many consecutive green-flag laps and throw cautions at scheduled points because of it, it seems those running the show are fading further and further from the entire concept of a caution.
A caution is supposed to be necessitated whenever something happening on-track (or above it) could present an imminent threat to a competitor. A damaged barrier after a driver buried into it should certainly rise to that point.
With that race in the books, Tyler Reddick extended his gargantuan points lead over Denny Hamlin to 129 points while Shane van Gisbergen unseated Chase Briscoe from the Chase for the time being, moving six points ahead of the 19 team.
The NASCAR Cup Series championship takes a week off, but the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series will be headed to Monster Mile for the 42nd annual All-Star Race. Coverage starts on Sunday, May 17 at 4pm Eastern Time on Fox Sports 1.
(Top Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
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