“I would have been all for that 100 percent…That would have been awesome.” A dejected Ty Gibbs longingly looked back at what could have been. He finished runner-up at the recently concluded Chicago Street Race, falling a good distance short of Shane Van Gisbergen. The Kiwi speedster oozed brilliance throughout this weekend, proving all over again that he is the god of road racing. However, that godly status may have easily slipped out of hand.
As Ty Gibbs said, NASCAR could have tweaked the end of the race to SVG’s disadvantage. The 2025 Grant Park 165 race was filled with wrecks and mishaps. But the final one was what made beads of sweat roll down SVG’s forehead.
Shane Van Gisbergen lets out a sigh of relief
Well, the Trackhouse Racing speedster knew what happened at the start of 2025. During Duel 2 at Daytona, officials displayed the yellow flag just before the checkered flag. That left the race leader at a disadvantage as they had to race with contenders to the finish. Shane Van Gisbergen suspected a similar situation at the end of the 2025 Chicago Street Race. As he was completing his last to final lap, Cody Ware blew a brake rotor and slammed into the Turn 6 tire barrier. By that time, contenders like Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, and Tyler Reddick were hounding SVG from the back. Both Briscoe and Reddick are established road racers, hence SVG’s double anxiety then.
Thankfully, NASCAR threw the caution flag only after SVG grabbed the checkered flag to finish the final lap. In a post-race interview, Shane Van Gisbergen explained how worried he was about the finish: “I think Tyler Reddick was the one I was worried about…But yeah, there was a tire carcass at the exit of 6 and there was a yellow flag or blue flag they have here. When they didn’t put it out for two laps I figured that they were just doing everything they could to get the race finished before the lightning hold. I feel like…you never know what’s going to happen with the yellows. When they left the tire carcass, I thought, okay, they’re trying to finish this race.”
If NASCAR had thrown the yellow flag, then Shane Van Gisbergen would have had to battle his contenders in the two-lap dash to the finish. But his fortunes aligned perfectly this weekend, as SVG could do a perfect weekend sweep with both Xfinity and Cup wins. He said, “When you’re in the lead like that, you’re just begging for the white flag to come out…I came out of the last corner and just saw a heap of smoke straight ahead at Turn 6. Then I just held my breath until I crossed the line, really. And when I got the white flag, I came around the next couple of corners, and the yellow came out. So, it was a massive relief. And yeah, you never know when they’re gonna throw the yellow, and try and have an exciting finish.”
SVG became the only driver after Kyle Busch’s 2016 Indianapolis sweep to win NASCAR’s top division races from the pole in a single weekend. Thus, Shane Van Gisbergen established his Cup Series immortality. While SVG rejoiced, his opponent was left scratching his head.
A double failure cuts deep
Well, the 2025 Cup Series season has been far from smooth for 23XI Racing. Bubba Wallace has eluded wins with 6 top tens and 3 top fives. He also wrecked out with two Hendrick Motorsports drivers in Chicago – Kyle Larson, and then Alex Bowman. Tyler Reddick, the 2024 regular season champion, has also yet to clinch his first victory for 2025. He has picked up 7 top tens and 5 top fives, and qualified 4th for the Chicago race. The road course race expert drummed up hopes for this weekend, owning wins at COTA, Road America, etc. Reddick started strong and lingered in the top five throughout the race. He dodged all the crippling crashes, but could not dodge Shane Van Gisbergen’s fast car.
This year’s race felt like an unfortunate repetition of the 2024 race. Last year, Tyler Reddick had fallen short of Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Chevy, and this time he fell short of SVG’s No. 88 Chevy. The No. 45 Toyota driver lamented post-race: “We kind of ended up in a tough spot there on the penultimate restart, I guess. Some of the cars were spinning — I can’t name them all, but unfortunately, we kind of just got stuck in the wrong lane where I had to check up. I got behind those cars that we were on the same tire strategy as us, so we just lost a bit of time there passing those cars back. It’s great to finish third, but it’s for sure a bummer when you look at how much ground you made up.”
Clearly, Shane Van Gisbergen ruled the show in Chicago yet again. The Kiwi speedster has dazzled his competitors in 2025, and more is yet to come.
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