• Saturday’s THE LOOP 110, Chicago Street Course
CHICAGO — Shane van Gisbergen put on a master class Saturday afternoon, winning the Xfinity Series’ The Loop 110 at the Chicago Street Course. The New Zealander led early and, again, led late to claim his third consecutive series road-course win and second race win on the 2.2-mile downtown Chica Fans who experienced monsoon-like rains at last year’s inaugural NASCAR visit to Chicago could not have asked for a more ideal summer afternoon on Saturday. People in the packed grandstands — nearly half taking in their first NASCAR event, according to Chicago Street Race President Julie Guise — enjoyed blue skies, a comfortable breeze and temperatures in the mid-70s.
And they enjoyed a highly competitive- spirited race, with van Gisbergen and Californian Kyle Larson dicing it up, door-to-door, front fender to back bumper from the drop of the green flag and then van Gisbergen charging through the field to claim the lead again in the final laps.
In the end, the 35-year-old van Gisbergen got his No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet around Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs with two laps remaining and charged off to his series-best third win of the year by a healthy 1.287 seconds over Gibbs and Larson.
“That’s awesome, what a great race,” said a grinning van Gisbergen after kicking a rugby ball into the cheering crowd as is his established NASCAR victory celebration. “It was pretty wild there at the end, but I can’t thank the Kaulig Racing guys enough. Had some great racing with everyone.” van Gisbergen, who also claimed road-course wins at Portland and Sonoma, led 14 laps as did Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love — most on the afternoon. Big Machine Racing’s Parker Kligerman finished fourth, his best result of season; Love was fifth.
The two champion drivers — Larson and van Gisbergen — set the tone immediately, exchanging the lead sometimes three and four times in a single lap from the drop of the green flag. Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, led the first six laps and van Gisbergen, a three-time Australian Supercars champion who won last year’s inaugural Cup Series race in Chicago, led the next nine laps to claim the Stage 1 win.
Varying pit-stop strategies adjusted the field mid-race. Many — such as Love — pitted during the first stage break at Lap 15. Van Gisbergen, Gibbs and Larson pitted during a caution period later on Lap 24. That shuffled the field putting those three early frontrunners playing catch-up in closing laps.
Connor Mosack, Austin Hill, Cup Series regular Joey Logano, Justin Allgaier and Austin Green rounded out the top 10. It was the first Xfinity Series start for Logano since 2019. It was the third top 10 in four career series starts for the 23-year-old Green — all coming on road courses.
Last year’s Chicago Xfinity race winner, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer, finished 18th despite dealing with various issues, including a pit-stop penalty.