How Legends Car Racing Is Helping Shane van Gisbergen Learn to ‘Keep His Head’ in NASCAR

Legends car racing is a big platform for young drivers to practice their race craft and gain some serious skills. The latest to enter this world and gain from it is the Australian Supercars champion, Shane van Gisbergen. Currently racing for Trackhouse Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, he participated in the 2025 Cook Out Summer Shootout at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He spoke to Corey LaJoie about the experience in a recent appearance on the Stacking Pennies podcast and detailed one of his biggest learnings. Interestingly, it had been 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace who got him involved with Legends cars. Along with Scott McLaughlin, the trio appears to have had a great time racing against the youngsters in the shootout.

Van Gisbergen quipped joyfully about how they had a bet that whoever finished last must pay for dinner. Contrary to the initial expectation that he and McLaughlin had, Wallace did not end up being better than them on most weeks, and he was the one who had to pay most for dinner. He continued to talk about the lessons that he learned during the course of the 10 rounds in the series.

He said, “You learn a lot. So, you have to choose yourself. The restarts are crazy. The restarts are just like Martinsville. You know, if you choose the outside, you can gain a row, but you have to get down as quick as you can … And then also keep in your head, like if someone hits you, you can’t just snap and get angry at that guy. You’ve got to kind of get your momentum going. It’s been fun learning that.”

The Cup Series can become an ugly game quite quickly. Drivers are always ready to pick fights over the tiniest of issues, and for someone like van Gisbergen, this can get highly overwhelming. The practice that he has now received in Legends cars, getting chased around by teenagers, will prove to be helpful when he races in his Chevrolet Camaro on Sundays.

The final round of the shootout went down on July 29. SVG qualified third, behind Jake Bollman and Tyler Reif, in the Pro Legends A-Feature. He ended up winning the 25-lap contest by a narrow margin of 0.417 seconds. The success marked his first-ever oval win in the United States. Hopefully, his first oval victory in the Cup Series will soon follow.