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Shane van Gisbergen makes NASCAR history with Charlotte Roval win

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones10/06/25brianjones_93
Shane van Gisbergen (9)
Scott Kinser-Imagn Images

Shane van Gisbergen won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at the Charlotte Roval on Sunday and made history in the process. As mentioned by Seth Eggert of Kickin’ The Tires, van Gisbergen became the first internationally born driver to earn 10 combined wins across NASCAR’s three national touring series.

The win on Sunday gave van Gisbergen his sixth victory in his NASCAR Cup Series career. The New Zealand native has also won four races in the Xfinity Series. Shane van Gisbergen has competed in one Truck Series race and finished 18th.

Of the six Cup Series wins van Gisbergen has recorded. Five have come this season. He and Denny Hamlin are the only drivers who have won at least five Cup Series race this season.

Shane van Gisbergen reacts to win at Charlotte Roval

During his post-race press conference, van Gisbergen talked about the challenges he faced at Charlotte on Sunday. “Yeah, I always enjoy a battle, but you also want to win by half a minute as well, you know, but yeah, I was having fun in that battle,” he said about his battle with Kyle Larson. “Especially, it was frustrating at the start of the last stage when they passed me, but it’s still enjoyable. Then, trying to understand how to be better, and I was trying to study them, see what they were doing better to me, so yeah, battling like that is a lot of fun, but you also want to win easily too.”

All of van Gibergen’s victories in NASCAR have come on road courses. At the beginning of the season, the 36-year-old struggled to have strong finishes on oval tracks. But van Gisbergen has shown improvement after finishing 10th at Kansas last week.

 “I feel like every race weekend I’m learning something. Even on a road course. These next few weeks are a contrast of tracks,” he said. “All three tracks are very different from each other.

“That’s the hard part, where you’ve got to transition from the mile and a half to the short track or superspeedway. It’s going to be a pretty crazy finish to the year. But, yeah, I need to be better at all disciplines of what NASCAR Cup racing is. That will help us do better in the playoffs next year.”