Shane van Gisbergen stormed through the streets of Chicago this weekend. The Trackhouse Racing #88 started his weekend with an Xfinity pole and win for JR Motorsports, and followed it up with yet another pole and win in the Cup! This made him the first driver since Kyle Busch to win the pole and the race in Xfinity and Cup on the same weekend. While his Cup celebrations were wild, he had something more serious to tend to after his Xfinity win.
Shane van Gisbergen faced not only the challenge of a demanding street circuit but also the unique pressures that come with racing in the heat of a Midwest summer. Chicago’s July temperatures pushed both drivers and machines to their limits, and SVG ended up on the wrong side of the heat on Saturday.
Shane van Gisbergen recounts the ordeal
Shane van Gisbergen’s post-race situation after the Xfinity Series Loop 110 was more than just a dramatic footnote; it was the latest in a series of alarming incidents highlighting the dangers of heat exhaustion in NASCAR. After crossing the finish line victorious, the press conference was canceled, and van Gisbergen was taken to the infield care center from extreme heat exhaustion caused by a defective cooling suit. According to team members, cockpit temperatures reached over 130 degrees!
Van Gisbergen described the physical toll that came with the Chicago heat and a malfunctioning cooling suit. Claire B Lang reported what SVG said on X, posting an image with his quotes that read, “Yesterday, I cooked. I don’t do well in the heat, and then it went wrong yesterday with the cool suit failing. It failed from the start. It never got going. Then, in stage 3, I managed to get the water flowing, but it didn’t cool down. My body temp was just screaming.”
The cooling suit, normally a lifeline for drivers in sweltering conditions, became a liability. As the system failed, van Gisbergen’s body temperature soared, and the symptoms of heat exhaustion set in. “Once I got some air con and just cooled down, I felt pretty good last night after a lot of fluids,” he said, describing the hours spent rehydrating and recovering for the next day’s race.
After going to Care Center post Chicago Street Race win Saturday in @NASCAR_Xfinity…. @shanevg97 sucked it up and won the Chicago Street Race! pic.twitter.com/dQqYr1kvIJ
— Claire B Lang (@ClaireBLang) July 6, 2025
Despite the setback, Shane van Gisbergen refused to let the equipment failure define his weekend. “Woke up this morning and just kept drinking as much as I could. I’m not perfect, but I was really good in the car, and again now, I’m hot, but I felt really good the whole race,” he explained, crediting his recovery to relentless hydration and the support of his team.
The Kiwi drove a sublime race, fending off hard chargers like Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs in the closing laps to sweep the weekend. However, despite his heroics, the incident raises bigger questions about the health and safety of drivers.
Are cool suit failures a point of concern for NASCAR?
What happened with Shane van Gisbergen wasn’t an isolated event. Ryan Blaney’s recent experience in Pocono, where he finished on the podium despite his cool suit failure, drew widespread attention to the issue. Blaney reportedly “fell to his knees multiple times …his legs were cramping,” as per Colin Ward after Pocono.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. reacted to SVG’s predicament, offering a blunt assessment on X, writing, “This is why I don’t wear one, they break more than they work. Hot water on you is no good.” Cool suit failures can be detrimental to a driver’s outing, as maintaining the scorching temperatures inside the car is critical to keep the driver hydrated while they barrel down at 190 miles an hour. Other drivers have expressed similar sentiments in the past.
Austin Hill, who finished in the top ten at Chicago, has been through some hot races himself. After a heat-filled day at Nashville in the 2024 Xfinity Series, Hill managed a top-5 finish, and noted that his preparation helped him last longer than his dehydrated competitors, but also said that without his coolshirt, it could have been entirely different. Hill said in that 2024 post-race interview, “I have my coolshirt.. [but if] that stuff goes out, I could be one of these guys lying on the ground… Looks like most of everybody’s up now, so looks like everybody’s good.”
The shared experiences of drivers across the grid affirm that, in the heat of competition, even the best-prepared athletes are vulnerable to the elements of nature and to the technology designed to protect them. Do you think NASCAR needs to crack down on its recent cool-suit failures? Let us know in the comments!
The post SVG Breaks Silence on His Failed Equipment That Tormented His Chicago Sweep appeared first on EssentiallySports.