Joey Logano crushed the competition at North Wilkesboro Sunday, leading 323 of the 450 laps on his way to winning the race. For Ford though, the question is whether this is an indication of things to come or a one-off. I mean, has Ford finally figured out the Next Gen car or not?
Because only Ryan Blaney has shown any real competitiveness in a Ford over the last two years. Prior to Sunday and dating back to May 4th, 2025, a span of 45 races, Ford had won six times, all by Blaney. So we’ll see.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Sunday’s race was the performance of Shane van Gisbergen, the 37-year-old New Zealander who has been tearing it up on road courses and flailing frantically everywhere else.
At a point in his life when most Cup drivers have established who they are and trying to maintain as they approach the end of their careers, van Gisbergen is attempting to learn how to drive on ovals.
And Sunday was his best effort yet. Driving for Trackhouse, he piloted his Chevy to a fifth-place finish, the first time in his short NASCAR career he has ever been in the top five on an oval.
He also led 49 laps, the most ever in a single race on an oval. Prior to the North Wilkesboro race, he had only led 28 laps total on oval tracks not counting superspeedways.
“What the (expletive) do I do now?” van Gisbergen joked on his radio after passing Denny Hamlin for first place according to NASCAR.com’s website. “I was just having fun,” he commented after the race. “It’s pretty cool to get up front and then be able to pass for the lead genuinely. We just got to enjoy ourselves.”
That’s a change from the superspeedways (Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega), where typically the cars run in long lines and gain positions with faster pit stops or when one line breaks up and another forms.
Running up front is very different from running in the back, where he is usually stuck, van Gisbergen said. “It’s just calmer when you get up there,” he remarked. “Everyone’s really respectful.”
Interestingly, Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, also used to being backpackers, made the same kind of comments after they finished sixth and fourth, respectively, at Pocono recently.
“It was just a real solid day,” Stephen Doran, van Gisbergen’s crew chief, said according to NASCAR.com’s website. “You speak about the race yesterday (the truck race Saturday), I feel that helped him a ton.
“He just learned the track. He used some of the lines he figured out yesterday in the truck, so thanks to Spire (van Gisbergen drove for Spire Motorsports Saturday) for letting him do that.
“I feel like it benefits us a ton at these places, so the more of those we can do, the better,” Doran said. “He’s just got to figure out how to make speed, and that just puts him a step ahead when we get to our stuff (Cup racing) if he has laps in a truck or an O’Reilly car.”
One of the things holding van Gisbergen back on the ovals is the fact that Trackhouse’s cars are not good enough to compete with those built by the elite teams, or even teams like Michael Jordan and Hamlin’s 23XI.
Because he is such a talented driver, van Gisbergen can make up for that on road courses, but competing on ovals is another matter entirely.
The falloff by Trackhouse, once considered a rising team in Chevy’s hierarchy, has been dramatic, as the Old Guy Sport competition index demonstrates.
In 2024, with only two cars, Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain won a race at Kansas and had 183 points, 13th best on the OGS competition index. His teammate, Daniel Suarez, scored 67 points.
The next year, 2025, Chastain won again, this time at Charlotte, but his point total dipped to 124 points. Suarez had just 43 and was released when the season ended. But van Gisbergen, added as a third driver, had five road course wins good for 368 points.
This year, with Chevy’s redesigned body, Trackhouse is really struggling although van Gisbergen continues to get better. So far, after 17 races, he has 15 points on short tracks and 12 on the intermediates plus two wins and 196 points on road courses, a total of 223.
That is in stark contrast to Chastain, with just four points, and Connor Zilsch, Suarez’s replacement, who has only five.
Clearly, van Gisbergen is running better than anybody could expect given the quality of the cars he has to compete in. What he might be capable of in a Hendrick Chevy would be interesting to see, now that he is showing signs of being able to run decently on ovals.
“We have fun with all of it,” Doran remarked. “We try to stay light. There’s a lot of inside jokes going on during the race between him, myself, Josh Williams (van Gisbergen’s spotter).
“That’s why we all do this,” Doran continued, “to have fun, win races. So it’s fun when we can run up front like that.” And the more fun they have, the less fun it’s going to be for everybody else.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Indianapolis: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner at Indianapolis: Bubba Wallace. Top five at Indianapolis last year: 1-Wallace, 2-Larson, 3-Hamlin, 4-Ryan Preece, 5-Brad Keselowski.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport North Wilkesboro picks: 1-Ryan Blaney, 2-Ty Gibbs, 3-Larson. North Wilkesboro winner: Joey Logano. OGS season record after 17 races: 9-8.
OGS competition index top 10 after 17 races: 1-Hamlin 522 points, 2-Tyler Reddick 343, 3-Bell 273, 4-Larson 270, 5-Gibbs 232, Chase Briscoe 232, 7-Shane van Gisbergen 223, 8-Chase Elliott 181, 9-Blaney 157, 10-Logano 117.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Indianapolis): 1-Hamlin 406, 2-Reddick 232, 3-Bell 172, 4-Larson 129, 5-Briscoe 127, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 99, 8-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-Daniel Suarez 51, 10-Wallace 48.