As it unfolded

In yet another waxing of the field that has legitimized talk of him potentially becoming NASCAR’s best road racer ever, Shane van Gisbergen cruised to victory at Watkins Glen International, earning his fourth road course win in a row and his fourth overall this season. The former V8 Supercars champion’s four wins in 2025 sets a new record for the most in any Cup driver’s rookie season, and he is also now tied with Denny Hamlin for the most wins of any driver this season.

After becoming the first driver in NASCAR’s modern era to win in his Cup debut by emerging victorious in what was supposed to be a one-off start at Chicago in 2023, van Gisbergen embraced the challenge of racing NASCAR full-time, moving from his native New Zealand to the United States to run a partial Cup schedule in 2024 before going full-time this season. While he’s taken his lumps — including at Watkins Glen a year ago, when he was on the wrong end of a last lap pass for the win — van Gisbergen has become virtually unstoppable in NASCAR’s summer stretch of road course races, winning at Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma and now Watkins Glen.

NASCAR 2025 race schedule, results: Complete list of Cup Series race dates, winners, tracks, locations

Steven Taranto

It’s put him not only in the playoffs, but has set him up to be one of the top seeds in the playoffs when they begin at Darlington later this month. And it’s also earned him a new contract with Trackhouse Racing, ensuring he’ll race in the U.S. for the next several years and allowing him to build on what is his growing road racing legend in NASCAR.

“That’s the stuff you dream about, right? I’m just a very lucky guy to get to drive for an amazing bunch of people and just execute,” van Gisbergen told NBC Sports before discussing his playoff prospects. “It ain’t gonna be easy, that’s for sure. The first round has some very difficult left hander tracks for me, but I’m getting better at it and I’m enjoying myself. It’s a challenge, but that’s why were and we’ll have a proper crack.”

Some 11 seconds behind van Gisbergen, the race was for second as Christopher Bell passed Chris Buescher on the final lap to take the runner-up spot. Buescher came across the finish line third, with William Byron in fourth and Chase Briscoe in fifth. Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suarez, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Ross Chastain rounded out the top 10.

Buescher’s third-place finish, combined with a win in stage one, proved to be an 11-point swing in his favor in the battle for the final spot in the NASCAR playoffs. Buescher has now built his advantage over RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece to 34 points with two races to go, as Preece wound up finishing 13th.

Reddick’s ninth-place finish now puts him 117 points above the cut line, putting him in position to potentially clinch a playoff spot on points. Alex Bowman ran 20th, but he continues to hold a relatively comfortable advantage of 60 points over the cut line. Meanwhile, at the top of the points standings, Byron built his lead in the regular season championship race to 42 points over Chase Elliott, whose 26th-place finish marked the first time he’s finished outside the top 20 all season.

One driver absent from Sunday’s race was Connor Zilisch, whose No. 87 team withdrew after a frightening incident on Saturday in which Zilisch slipped and fell off his car in Victory Lane while celebrating a win in the Xfinity Series. Zilisch, who broke his collarbone in the fall, was back at the racetrack on Sunday and told NBC Sports that his timetable to return to racing remains to be determined.

Go Bowling at The Glen results

1. #88 – Shane van Gisbergen (R)
2. #20 – Christopher Bell
3. #17 – Chris Buescher
4. #24 – William Byron
5. #19 – Chase Briscoe
6. #12 – Ryan Blaney
7. #99 – Daniel Suarez
8. #23 – Bubba Wallace
9. #45 – Tyler Reddick
10. #1 – Ross Chastain
11. #16 – A.J. Allmendinger
12. #43 – Erik Jones
13. #60 – Ryan Preece
14. #22 – Joey Logano
15. #3 – Austin Dillon
16. #2 – Austin Cindric
17. #38 – Zane Smith
18. #77 – Carson Hocevar
19. #71 – Michael McDowell
20. #48 – Alex Bowman
21. #4 – Noah Gragson
22. #8 – Kyle Busch
23. #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
24. #35 – Riley Herbst (R)
25. #11 – Denny Hamlin
26. #9 – Chase Elliott
27. #7 – Justin Haley
28. #34 – Todd Gilliland
29. #51 – Cody Ware
30. #10 – Ty Dillon
31. #6 – Brad Keselowski
32. #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
33. #54 – Ty Gibbs
34. #41 – Cole Custer
35. #21 – Josh Berry
36. #78 – Katherine Legge
37. #66 – Josh Bilicki
38. #44 – J.J. Yeley
39. #5 – Kyle Larson

By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer

Nearly every multi-car organization in NASCAR experiences the ups and downs of auto racing every weekend.

For Trackhouse Racing boss Justin Marks, however, this weekend at Watkins Glen International proved to showcase the highest highs and lowest lows in a matter of 24 hours.

Saturday saw Trackhouse’s two top prospects, Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch, race under the JR Motorsports banner and tangle for the lead. The contact led van Gisbergen into the wall and out of the race. Zilisch went on to win.

Moments later in Victory Lane, the 19-year-old fell while exiting his No. 88 and struck the ground, resulting in a broken collarbone and a withdrawal from Sunday’s Cup race.

And on Sunday, SVG brought home his fourth win of 2025, gapping second place by more than 11 seconds after leading 38/90 laps.

What. A. Weekend.

“A very eventful weekend, that’s for sure,” Marks said. “Some pretty high moments and then obviously a tough one last night.

“I think when you look back on weekends like this, it’s just like why we’re doing it. This is why we’re focused and working so hard in the race shop because we feel like we have a tremendous opportunity with Shane. We have a tremendous opportunity with Daniel [Suarez] and with Ross [Chastain] and then obviously with Connor coming up.”

Though Zilisch was unable to compete in what would have been his fourth Cup start in Trackhouse’s No. 87, he did attend the race alongside Marks, who explained his pride in seeing the Xfinity point leader learn all he could from the sidelines.

“I think it was important for him [to show up Sunday],” he said. “He sat in the bus with me today and we were watching timing and scoring together. I think that he doesn’t want to be away. He wants to be at the racetrack. His whole life is about being a racecar driver.

“For a guy like Connor, even if he’s not in the racecar today and he’s not feeling that well, he feels like there’s always an opportunity to learn something.

“I think he just wanted to show the fans and show the sport that he was upright and he was okay and he’s committed and he really wants to get back as fast as he can. I’m glad that he came today and showed that he’s a part of this company.”

Along with SVG’s victory, the first time a rookie has ever won four races, Trackhouse also had a triple top 10 with Chastain [10th] and Suarez [seventh], respectively.

READ MORE: PROJECT 91 PROGRAM ‘NOT DEAD’, SAYS JUSTIN MARKS

Between Zilisch’s showcase of commitment and van Gisbergen’s showcase of road course royalty, Marks leaves New York proud of his team’s strength.

“You look back and you go, we recognized incredible talent with Connor, made a commitment to him and helped him get an opportunity to showcase his talent. He did that yesterday,” he said. “Then today Shane just continues to go showcase why we’ve made a long-term commitment to him, why we brought him over here from New Zealand and built this team around him.

“Because, in a sport like this where winning is so important and it’s so hard to do, if you can catch some lightning in a bottle like we’ve got with SVG, you’ve got to really lean into it.

“That’s what we’ve done. You look at the weekend, and it’s like seeing a plan come together.”

Shane van Gisbergen — winner: “What an awesome race. The last stint was a bit cleared out, but the battle coming back through I had a lot of fun. That’s the stuff you dream about, right? I’m just a very lucky guy to get to drive for an amazing bunch of people and just execute. The day went flawlessly, and I can’t believe it. Really enjoyed it. It ain’t going to be easy (in the playoffs), that’s for sure. The first round, there’s some very difficult left-handed tracks for me, but I’m getting better at it, and I’m enjoying myself. It’s a challenge. But that’s why we’re here, and we’ll have a proper crack. … (Blaney) was amazing. He was really good at the start; driving well and I couldn’t pass him. Then all the strategies happened through Stage Two. I think it was that restart in the final stage that got me up closer to the front, and we could run a bit longer. … I really think we are building, but we have got a lot more to go. It’s just a special moment here.”

Christopher Bell — second: “Happy, yeah. I’m thrilled. We’ve been struggling a little bit to find a rhythm. I feel like the car has been good but executing the races has been tough for us. Really awesome to have a good day. Frustrated to get our butts kicked by (van Gisbergen). He’s doing a really good job. That team has it going on. We need to find a little bit more but certainly happy. It was a good day.”

Chris Buescher — third: “Yeah, I’m really proud of everybody, to bring this Mustang back here and have this kind of speed. Last year we didn’t have to deal with the points side of things, so we brought a fast race car and made it happen. We had a really fast race car again, just definitely took the opportunity to capitalize on some big stage points there early. Still got back up into second there and was making some pretty good headway. But just used it up really hard trying to get by a couple cars and get to that track position, and fell off pretty hard there at the end. … We went for those stage points there, and it still put us in a good spot to be in contention here and really still be fighting for a win, just not close enough. But to head into the next two weeks, racetracks that we’ve won at, certainly not the best place to be, but to put some more points on the board, ultimately that just comes from fast race cars. Go to the next two weeks, be fast, and it should take care of itself.

William Byron — fourth: “Iit was really tough there at the end. To have to run 18 laps on those tires in practice was difficult, and then to put 36 laps on them, I was just hanging on there at the end. I learned a lot there at the end, just with how to conserve for the next time. The last 10 laps were really difficult, but glad we could get a top-five finish. I think we had a pretty good points day. The first stage didn’t go probably how we anticipated. I got really loose across the carousel and almost spun out. And then after that, I think we did a good job. We had a good strategy – the one stop ended up being really good. We were able to have some decent pace and it just worked out.”

Chase Briscoe — fifth: “I guess it would have been that final stage, just strategy kind of got flipped. (Shane van Gisbergen) and (Ross Chastain) and myself kind of started right there in the mid pack. The restart didn’t go me or the 1’s way, the 88 was able to get five spots ahead of us before of us on the first lap and kept pulling further and further away. I thought our car was – I don’t know what the 88 had – but I thought we were probably the second-best race car. That restart just didn’t go our way and we lost a lot of track position and obviously was able to play the long game there in the end and come home top-five. Overall, a good solid finish in a fast Camry. We will go onto Richmond and see what we can do.”

Ryan Blaney — sixth: “I just lost speed, handling and where the track was at probably a little bit and just lost in pace. But overall really good effort by our whole group, and I wish we could have finished a few spots better than that. But overall really good weekend and proud of the whole effort. Good showing on a road course for us. So I think that program is getting a little bit better. So hard to be too upset about the day. Looking at the points board, we scored a lot. But yeah, just a good day overall, well-executed day and kept track position and was able to win a stage and still had fifth until the last corner. So yeah overall strong weekend by this group. Hard-fought afternoon.”

Daniel Suarez — seventh: “It feels nice to get a good finish for this No. 99 Chevrolet team. For the last couple of months, I feel like we’ve had decent, top-10 speed. We just haven’t been able to execute. Today, we were able to execute a decent race. This team did a good job all day. Our Chevrolet was pretty good – I don’t know if it was good enough to win, but it was good enough to be fighting in the top-10 and that’s where we ended up. (Watkins Glen International) has been good to me in the past. Like Iowa (Speedway) and Indianapolis (Motor Speedway), there’s been a lot of tracks that have been good to me in the past. We’ve just had a lot of accidents and things happen that were out of our control. Hopefully we can carry this momentum into the next couple of races and get a win.”

Bubba Wallace — eighth: “Indy was life-changing. It allowed me to come here and not harp on all of the mistakes that I usually make at a road course and figure out how to make less. I think we did that. I don’t think our car was capable of winning at all, but 10^th to 12^th place is where we determined our team is a couple months ago, and we exceeded that, so that’s a win. I appreciate everyone on this Toyota Camry. It looked good. My suit was the best one in the game. All around fun weekend. The big boss was here. MJ (Michael Jordan, co-owner, 23XI Racing) was here, so good to get him a couple of top 10s.”

Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images

Tyler Reddick — ninth: “We were still struggling honestly. Everyone on the No. 45 Toyota Camry did a good job executing strategy. We faded pretty hard at the end there. It was good that it worked out and we were able to get a top-10 out of it, but yeah, we didn’t qualify good, and we couldn’t make any progress at the start. So very fortunate, but overall good points day.”

AJ Allmendinger — 11th: “Overall, I felt like we maximized our day. I wish we could have been a little bit faster all weekend. I’m proud of Trent [Owens] and the 16 group; we were able to make some good changes to be more competitive for the race. I messed up the strategy but honestly, I’m not sure how much that really impacted our race. We got stage points and earned an 11th place. We were hoping for better, but I’m proud of the effort from everyone to get the most out of our weekend.”

Austin Dillon — 15th: “Solid day at a road course for us. Watkins Glen International is probably my least favorite track we go to all year, so being able to fight for that finish and run right outside the top-10 towards the end is big for our No. 3 team. Our tires just gave up there in the closing laps. The guys did a great job on strategy, and our pit crew did awesome each stop. We will build off this good run going into Richmond.”

Kyle Busch — 22nd: “It was good to qualify in the top-five this weekend and our ECR engines showed a lot of power. The No. 8 Chevrolet was one of the fastest cars on the track through the first two stages and we were running at the front. We lost lot of track position at roughly the halfway point after on track contact and worked to make it back up and finished inside the top-25. Now we’ll focus on Richmond and racing our way into the playoffs.”

1/27

Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland at Portland International Raceway showcased the brilliance of Team Penske’s Will Power and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou.

It was a race dripping with historical implications on a beautiful 86-degree day.

Power won for the second consecutive year at PIR, and third time overall, as he easily brought home the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevy — notching a win in an 18th season in his career and assuring that Team Penske wouldn’t go winless during a racing season for the first time since 1999. It was the 45th win in his career, which stretches back to the Champ Car World Series days that included starts at PIR.

“Good win for all the team,” said the Australian Power, 44, who has been rumored to be racing his final season with Team Penske. “Good hard fought win.

“I’ve had a great career with Verizon and Penske, and I’ve really enjoyed winning for the guys and everybody I’ve worked with for a long time.”

No attendance was released for Sunday race day. The front straightaway grandstands had plenty of empty seats. But recreation vehicles filled good spots on turns 4-8, and grandstand K at “Shelton Chicane,” turns 1-3, had few empty seats and pitched tents and partying went on pre-race.

Whether it be food carts and fun activities on the outside of the track, a deejay and cheerleading squad “Dirt Darlings” and fans walking through the pre-race grid inside, enthusiasm abounded. And the city of Portland worked with promoters to ensure fans would have access to cooling tents, misters and even a Blue Star bus for recovery from heat.

True to its mission, IndyCar attracts a lot of people from outside Portland for a weekend of fast fun.

Shaunna McCarthy of Vancouver, Wash. attended her second IndyCar race with Xavier Molina and Molina girls Olivia, 10, and Norah, 7. She wore checkered flag-patterned pants, and racing-themed attire, as the family checked out the pits.

“It’s amazing. The access (to cars, drivers) in the pits is amazing. Everybody is so friendly and chatty. And it’s very kid friendly,” McCarthy said. They all have their favorite drivers, but Olivia likes Pato O’Ward because “he wins and goes fast” (although not on Sunday, unfortunately).

Bellingham, Wash. friends Ken Adelstein and Matt Benoit have attended each race since IndyCar added Portland to the schedule in 2018. As they sat in the shade of their SUV behind grandstand K, they talked about how they “follow it all year long,” Adelstein said, of IndyCar.

They both raced go-karts that maxed out at 50 mph. “I can’t imagine the feeling of G force in the corners (in an IndyCar),” Adelstein said.

Said Benoit: “The sensation of speed is incredible. They’re cool to look at (the cars), and to see the raw speed and downforce.”

Brothers Mark Kieffer of Seattle and Steve Kieffer of Chicago meet at PIR every year for the IndyCar race and, like other fans, made record time putting up their tent in the infield behind grandstand K.

“No better racing in the country,” Mark said. The brothers said IndyCar has cool tracks — ovals, road course, street courses — and the open-wheel machines operate with such precision and speed.

And, perhaps one of the more enthusiastic fans sat atop the shoulders of her father Sunday. Bend’s Kurin Williams said he and Lindsey Folio’s daughter, 3 1/2-year-old Julia, watch all racing on TV, “when she can stay awake,” the dad said.

Williams, who annually attends the Long Beach Grand Prix in California, and daughter (who likes driver Scott Dixon) went to the Laguna Seca race at Monterey, California, recently, and camped. Folio, meanwhile, attended her first race Sunday.

“It’s neat to see all the transporters and cars, and you get to be close up with the drivers,” she said.

Jerry Jensen, VP/GM of Green Savoree Portland, said negotiations are underway on a new contract for a PIR race. He’s very optimistic.

“Overall it was a great weekend. Little on the hot side, and a lot going on with the (Clark County) fair and Bridge Pedal. It seemed like an active crowd. Healthy crowd.”

He said the RV sites were sold out.

The 28-year-old Spaniard Palou secured his fourth IndyCar championship and third in a row by virtue of his third-place finish, and O’Ward’s mechanical issue on lap 22 that forced the only driver still mathematically alive to be out for several laps. From there, it was Palou keeping up his speed; it got hairy when Palou tried to pass second-place Christian Lundgaard with a few laps left, as Palou went off the track between turns 6-7 only to recover and draw multiple, “What a save!” comments from TV announcers.

Palou settled for third behind Power and Lundgaard with his 12th top-5 finish in 15 races, and claimed the championship with a 151-point lead over O’Ward with two races to go (Milwaukee, Nashville). Palou sits at eight wins, and could still tie Mario Andretti (nine wins, 1969) and A.J. Foyt (10 wins, 1964) and Al Unser (10 wins, 1970) atop IndyCar’s all-time single-season wins list.

“I’m so glad we got it,” Palou said. “This year has been even more magical.”

He averted a catastrophe in trying to pass Lundgaard. “Today we wanted to win. We’re here to win. It didn’t work, gave it everything I had, did everything to overtake Lundgaard, but couldn’t do it today,” Palou said. Sitting next to team owner Chip Ganassi, Palou reacted to Ganassi holding up two fingers, meaning Palou could still win and tie for the all-time wins lead. “Hopefully we still get to 10,” Palou said.

It’s the 17th championship for Ganassi, tying him with Roger Penske for the all-time IndyCar lead.

Arrow McLaren’s Lundgaard had the fast qualifying time and had to overcome a starting penalty to finish second.

Meanwhile, IndyCar appears to be happy with the Portland race and Green Savoree Racing Promotions. But dynamics have changed now that Fox Sports now broadcasts every race but owns part of the series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Briefly

• Remarkably, there were no entanglements in the Shelton Chicane during the start of the IndyCar race. There were few incidents, although Conor Daly went off track and slammed into a tire wall after a dustup with Christian Rasmussen.
• Coolest IndyCar paint design? Had to be Felix Rosenqvist’s Honda and its Grateful Dead, tie-dyed design.
• Wilsonville’s Josh Pierson, 19, finished 11th in the Indy NXT at PIR on Sunday. He’s fifth in points. Series leader Dennis Hauger led all 35 laps to win the race.
• Race fans have another opportunity to take in the speed and sound of fast cars at the Nascar Xfinity Series’ Pacific Office Automation 147, Aug. 29-30. More: raceportland.com.

No one has been better on the road courses this year than Shane Van Gisbergen.  

The New Zealander continues to show why at Watkins Glen International. The No. 88 Chevrolet won the NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowl at the Glen on Sunday.  

“I’m just a very lucky guy to get to drive for an amazing bunch of people and just execute,” Van Gisbergen said. “The day just went flawlessly and I really enjoyed it.

Van Gisbergen, who started second in the race, has now won four of the five road courses this season. Unlike last year, he was able to hold off Christopher Bell and Chris Buescher handily this time, who won the road course in 2024.  

“I gave that wall about half a meter this time and tried not to push too hard,” Van Gisbergen said. “That was definitely in the back of my mind, but I was not under pressure, so take it easy I guess.”

Van Gisbergen and his team’s strategy was to go for the win, which allowed Buescher to take the first stage, and Ryan Blaney, the pole sitter, to win stage two.  

He led a race-best 38 of 90 laps, including the final 17, to give himself his first trip to victory lane at the Glen.

“The 12 was really fast at the start, and then we sort of split strategies,” Van Gisbergen said. “And at the end of stage three, I didn’t really know how it was going to play out.”  

Next up on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway next weekend, before the regular season finale at Dayton International Speedway later this month.