Van Gisbergen rivals can breathe easier in Dover
That's because the drivers are heading to Dover Motor Speedway for Sunday's AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at the challenging, one-mile concrete venue in Dover.
It follows more than a month of Down Under destruction on the road courses by New Zealand's SVG, who won three times and vaulted to third in the playoff standings with his win at Sonama.
However, the Trackhouse Racing driver has only been a blip on the radar outside of road courses, recording only four finishes inside the top 20, including a pair of 20th-place showings, with a season-best 14th at Charlotte.
This is the lone stop in the nation's first state. The last two-race season at Dover was in 2020 with back-to-back 311-lap events won by Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick on consecutive days to lessen travel during COVID.
Now there's just one frightening visit to the track ominously called "The Monster Mile" because of its 24-degree banking, self-cleaning wrecks as cars slide down to the apron, and gruelling 400 laps, though it was an even worse 500 until Dover's second race in 1997.
The past four winners in Delaware since 2020 include a pair of Chevrolet and Toyota drivers each - bowtie wheelmen Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott and Camry pilots Martin Truex Jr. and Hamlin, respectively.
Bowman's 2021 triumph was historic as he led Hendrick Motorsports to a 1-2-3-4 finish, marking just the fourth time ever in NASCAR that a quartet of teammates captured the top spots.
Last season in late April, after earlier winning on the Bristol and Richmond short tracks, Hamlin started sixth after seeing Kyle Busch earn the pole and beat Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson by 0.256 seconds for his 54th career win.
Earlier that week on his podcast, Hamlin had basically called his shot by saying he expected to win, then went ahead and did just that.
"You'd better win if you're going to open your mouth, that's for sure," the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said after leading a race-high 136 laps in his No.11.
However, the victory was the last of 2024 for Hamlin as he went without checkers from May through November.
The Tampa-born Hamlin is one of three drivers in Sunday's field who holds multiple Dover victories. The defending winner has won twice along with Elliott, while Busch won in 2008, 2010 and 2017.
With 12 different winners possessing playoff positions, the winless Busch stepped it up last Sunday at Sonoma by finishing 10th and gaining nine points on the cut line, which has Bubba Wallace sitting in 16th.
Wallace was not in contention to beat van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion and Bathurst 1000 winner, at Sonoma - no one was, really - but he did gain one point on 17th-place Ryan Preece by accumulating 15 stage points as he stayed out on long runs.
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