Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Supercars legend Shane van Gisbergen has become the most successful active NASCAR Cup Series driver on road and street courses, dominating at Sonoma Raceway for the second consecutive year.
The Trackhouse Racing driver earned his second win this season on Sunday (Monday AEST) and the eighth of his career on the tracks that require left and right turns, breaking a tie with Chase Elliott.
Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon is the all-time leader with nine road course victories in NASCAR’s premier series, and van Gisbergen is tied with three-time champion Tony Stewart for second.
Working his way through the field after starting sixth in his No.97 Chevrolet, van Gisbergen led 74 of the final 83 laps on the 1.99-mile road course north of San Francisco.
Chase Briscoe made a charge in the closing laps but came up 0.357 seconds behind in second for his second consecutive runner-up showing at Sonoma.
Pole-sitter Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell rounded out the top five.
For the second year in a row, the top seed was knocked off in the opening race of the In-Season Challenge, the bracket-style tournament that pits 32 drivers head to head with the top finisher advancing.
Tyler Reddick finished four laps down in 36th because of a power steering problem. That turned his first-round matchup into a walkover for 10th-place finisher Alex Bowman, who nabbed the 32nd and final seed in the In-Season Challenge despite missing four races with vertigo.
NASCAR now returns to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time in seven years with a 400-mile race on July 5. In the most recent Cup race on the 1.5-mile oval in Joliet, Illinois, Alex Bowman earned his first victory in NASCAR’s premier series by beating future teammate Kyle Larson on June 30, 2019.
