Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen has now won six consecutive road and street course races in the NASCAR Cup Series at venues not named Circuit of the Americas (COTA), and Sunday's come-from-behind win at Watkins Glen International demonstrated just how much better he is than anybody else at the moment on tracks with both left and right turns.
Van Gisbergen became the first driver in six decades to win on Cup debut when he won the inaugural Cup Series street race in Chicago, Illinois in 2023. He is now only in his second season as a full-time driver, yet he's already 12th among active drivers on the all-time wins list.
Sunday's win allowed him to break a tie for that spot, and it moved him ahead of three veterans.
SVG moves ahead of 3 race-winning veterans
Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon is in his 13th season in the series, and he is a two-time crown jewel winner, having won the 2017 Coca-Cola 600 and the 2018 Daytona 500. He owns six victories overall. SVG has already passed him in 62 starts.
RFK Racing's Chris Buescher, who had a three-race oval win streak late in the 2023 regular season, is in his 11th season as a full-time driver. He hasn't won on an oval since that streak ended and has been sitting at six victories for nearly two years. He's now behind SVG as well.
Then there's Ross Chastain. He's only in his sixth full season, so he isn't necessarily a veteran like Dillon and Buescher, but all six of his wins have come with Trackhouse Racing, where he's been competing since 2022. So SVG's most recent win made him the team's all-time winningest driver.
Already.
Some might argue that there are too many road and street course races on the current Cup calendar. That's a fair argument if you're reluctant to consider SVG the road course GOAT, even though his win percentage in such races blows away even those of some of the other greats.
But drivers such as Dillon, Buescher, and Chastain have had the same opportunities that SVG has had, and more. Heck, Buescher and Chastain are both road course winners, with Buescher outdueling SVG at Watkins Glen two years ago, and Chastain earning his first career Cup win at COTA in 2022.
Nobody claimed, for instance, that there were too many 1.5-mile ovals, when Martin Truex Jr. was dominating on those en route to his 2017 championship.
And six road course races (only four this year) out of 36 on the schedule isn't even that many, in the grand scheme of things. If any driver sweeps, or comes close to sweeping, all of the races that are contested at similar ovals, then yeah, that driver is going to have a significantly inflated win percentage.
As they should. SVG just happens to be doing it on road courses. And it's paying off.
With two more road course races on the 2026 calendar, don't be surprised to see SVG pass Alex Bowman, who has been sitting at eight wins since his street course victory in Chicago two years ago, on the all-time wins list as well.
The Cup Series is set to race at the new Qualcomm Circuit on Naval Base Coronado on Sunday, June 21, as well as Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, June 28.
Given the fact that SVG won in Chicago in its inaugural running and won the first (and, for now, only) race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez a year ago, the fact that he hasn't run the San Diego track shouldn't be a hindrance. In fact, it might actually help him.
Of course, he did win at Sonoma a year ago also, over guys who have been competing there for their entire careers.
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