Shane Van Gisbergen dominates PitBoss/FoodMaxx 250 for second NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts series win in three years at Sonoma Raceway

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By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)

Kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

Sonoma–It’s always known that on road courses, Shane Van Gisbergen is a factor. But sometimes he just has to put on a clinic. 

In Saturday’s PitBoss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway, he left no doubt to win in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for the second time this season.

Van Gisbergen did this by leading a whopping 66 laps to win by 1.3 seconds. However, he held a lead of over 4 seconds in the race. This was also his 6th win in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series competition in just 39 starts. 

As the race was winding down, his JR Motorsports No. 9 team had been worried about fuel. But he was able to save enough fuel, thanks in large part to having a commanding lead all day long.  

The man they call SVG also got to give car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr and his daughter a ride to victory lane in the drag strip afterwards. 

“I haven’t done that with him before, and his little daughter, think it was Nicole in there, and yeah, I wanted to do more skids, but she didn’t,” Van Gisbergen explained. “So, we just cruised to Victory Lane. But yeah, pretty special to have him in the car and to drive for his team. He’s a pretty amazing person, and can see how hands-on and invested he still is in the team. And yeah, you can see how stoked he is for all the guys. It’s pretty cool to, yeah, as I said, drive for him, but share those moments with such a cool person and team, and I love driving for them every chance I get.” 

This was a bit of a revengeful win for Van Gisbergen after he didn’t win this race last season. But with the victory, he has won this race twice in the last 3 years for two different organizations. In 2024, he won with Kaulig. This win came with JR Motorsports.   

Finishing second was Zilisch. He began the day by starting deep in the pack after a tire issue in qualifying on Friday and worked his way to second. Granted, they had to use some strategy to get there. But this can be done when you’re not full-time in the series.  

“It’s good, but I would have liked to race Shane,” Zilisch said of his result. “He’s the benchmark and the guy you want to beat, so you know, I know second is good, especially with the last few months I’ve had, but you know, I wish I could have had a little more fun. It was kind of boring out there, honestly.” 

But maybe the best story of the day came from the back half of the top 6. Finishing fourth and fifth were Viking Motorsports teammates Anthony Alfredo and Parker Retzalff. 

“I think it’s all these great people standing around here that did all this hard work throughout the whole year so far,” Retzlaff explained. “So I’m glad we got a double top five today. And overall, I think that we just missed it a little bit. Like, I think I let the team down a little bit of a wrong path in practice and qualifying, which is some stuff that I needed to change, and overall, I feel like we can still use this as a building week and go on to next week and try and keep doing it again.”

Rounding out the top 6 was Carson Kvapil. This was his best run of the season in the DGM No. 91.

The solid run also moved him up to sixth in points. That would put him solidly inside the top 12 for The Chase.      

“It’s super cool, Kvapil said of his great finish. “Obviously, these guys, they’re on a different side of the garage than what I normally am, so it’s definitely different, everything on and off tracks different from one end of the garage to the other. So all these guys, I’m sure they don’t have to win, just like I would, but I’m sure they’re pretty pleased with running sixth and getting stage points, and just unlike a normal day for them, I guess you could say, so for me, I’m just trying to go out here and win every race I can, any race that I can. So, for me, it’s just another solid run and another good, good points day. I think we gained a spot from the driver’s points, which is really good. I feel like we’re pretty close to third or fourth. It’s just we got to have really solid races like this to catch up.” 

The series will be back in action next Saturday when they visit Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019.