Kevin Harvick fires off interesting take on perception change if Shane van Gisbergen wins on oval

Following a fourth win on a road course for Shane van Gisbergen this weekend, the question isn’t how dominant a road course racer he is. Rather, it’s whether he can become proficient in oval racing to balance out his profile.

He’s unquestionably the best road course racer in the game right now. But what if he added ovals to his repertoire? Would that change the current perception van Gisbergen has as a one-trick pony?

“That’s a good question,” Kevin Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “I think now, because he wins so much on the road course, now the debate for the fan council that NASCAR sends out to do all these polls is going to be do we have too many road course races.”

That’s a very different question than whether Shane van Gisbergen deserves to be in the thick of the playoff hunt, having won on only one type of track. And it may not be fair to the driver of the No. 88.

Moreover, Harvick defended the decision NASCAR has made to include so many road course races. It adds a different element to the circuit.

“You have to have it if you’re going to grow (the sport),” Harvick said. “If you’re going to be international you’ve got to have a road course. The international fans don’t understand oval racing.

“It’ll take us to places hopefully like Montreal. It’s taken us to Mexico City, it’s put us in COTA. It’s put us in all these great venues that are world-class venues, and people understand road racing. Maybe it opens the door for more people that are good road racers to come over here and say, ‘Well maybe I should try this because SVG’s having success and I think I’m better than him.'”

Right now that seems like a far cry. Shane van Gisbergen has been virtually untouchable on the road courses this year.

And Harvick pointed out something else. This type of road course dominance isn’t necessarily new. It just hasn’t happened in a long, long time. Shane van Gisbergen is a blast from the past.

“You look at the guy they’re comparing him to in how fast he’s won two of these starts,” Harvick said. “It’s Dan Gurney, OK, from the ’60s. That’s what we’re comparing it to. It’s not like this is different. It’s not something new, it’s just something that most fans don’t recognize because they don’t know anything about the 1960s and the NASCAR history.

“The guy that SVG is getting compared to is Dan Gurney. And that happened a long time ago. So it’s not new.”