1 week agoTrackhouse Racing's Shane Van Gisbergen qualified 36th for Sunday's Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway. This marks Van Gisbergen's lowest start position of the season in a race, as well as the third consecutive race where he will start outside of the top 30. In his only previous Cup start at Darlington in September 2024 with Kaulig Racing, SVG started 34th and finished in the 26th position. Through seven races so far this season, SVG has two top-30 finishes and earned positive Place Differential three times. In practice, the No. 88 Chevrolet driver ranked fourth in overall lap averages and ranked 20th in 15 consecutive lap averages. With his starting position at the back, cheap salary ($5,400 on DraftKings), and practice speeds, SVG is a driver who can be comfortably relied on as a safe cap flexibility play with upside for DFS, which is best suited for cash games.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
2 weeks agoOne of the big surprises at Martinsville last fall was Shane van Gisbergen, who wound up finishing 12th last November in his very first start at the half-mile race track despite starting back in 29th. At a track that's super hard to pass at and as a driver making his first Cup Series start at the track, that was incredibly impressive. Now the question is, can SVG pull off a similar result this weekend? The No. 88 Chevrolet will roll off the starting grid from 33rd-place when the Cook Out 400 goes green on Sunday afternoon, so van Gisbergen will have to work hard to make his way through the field. However, SVG was ninth-quickest in practice on Saturday afternoon, so it's not like his Chevrolet is lacking speed--at least when it comes to one single lap. SVG never made a long run in practice, so it's hard to tell how the No. 88 Chevrolet will race. It's a bit of an unknown what to expect out of van Gisbergen this weekend, but with Place Differential upside (starting 33rd) and a low salary on DraftKings ($5,900), it's definitely worth having exposure to SVG with your DFS lineups this weekend.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Velocity
3 weeks agoShane van Gisbergen is making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead. He qualified 25th and finished 17th in his one Xfinity Series start, typically behind A.J. Allmendinger and ahead of Josh Williams. However, that isn't enough experience to make him necessarily valuable at Homestead or really any oval. The fact that he qualified 35th and is very cheap at $6,000 means that he could be valuable in terms of Place Differential points if he backs into a solid finish, but that seems much less likely at Homestead than a lot of other tracks because the races there tend to reward performance and don't devolve into the crapshoots that would be necessary for him to gain enough positions to be valuable in DFS. Once again, chalk this up as a learning experience.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
4 weeks agoEven though Shane van Gisbergen's teammate Ross Chastain was the fastest driver in Saturday's practice at Las Vegas, don't expect SVG to utilize his Trackhouse Racing cars to the same extent. Although it might be tempting to draft him because he is starting 28th and because of Chastain's speed, he is still a rookie who has only raced at this track once before in the Cup Series, finishing 29th in last fall's event. He didn't have much experience there in the Xfinity Series, either, as he had mechanical DNFs in both Las Vegas races last year before they were half over. It takes a while for even the world's best drivers to figure out the Next Gen car, and even though he is one of the world's best drivers, he isn't yet on ovals. It is probably advisable to stay away for DFS lineups.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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