Kaulig Racing President Chris Rice is excited and makes a bold prediction after SVG’s victory in Chicago

July 7, 2024

Shane van Gisbergen took his third Xfinity Series victory on Saturday in Chicago, with a triumph at The Loop 110. And his victory had one of his bosses, the president of Kaulig Racing, Chris Ricein a pretty good mood.

Rice was in such good spirits that he made a pretty bold prediction about where van Gisbergen might be at the end of the season.

“You know, I knew our Xfinity program was behind and I knew we had a lot of work to do, but that’s why we brought AJ back and we’re going to start making the ovals better, but no, I didn’t really think SVG would get three wins, but I never underestimate him on these road courses,” Rice told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Tomorrow will be great, but no, I didn’t think he would have three win stickers on his car. But I’m so excited that he does. With all the playoff points he has, he could lead the points going into the playoffs.”

With his win on Saturday, van Gisbergen moved up two places in the Xfinity Series playoff points standings, climbing to 11th place. He is currently 200 points behind leader Cole Custer.

And against the backdrop of Chicago, Rice is looking forward to more racing. He also praised all the people who contributed to the success of Rice, van Gisbergen and Co. on Saturday.

“I’m so excited. This is so awesome,” Rice said. “Being in Chicago with all the tall buildings and winning — but it’s always awesome when you can win. So thanks to Matt Kaulig for making this possible. But Shane van Gisbergen, I mean, just unbelievable. But we built a track program and then he’s stuck with it and continues to run well. So thanks to WeatherTech, Ty Norris back at Pocono when we started talking about it, Justin Marks, everybody that made this possible.

“I’m excited. For some strange reason I’m really excited and I don’t even know why.”

Some of van Gisbergen’s strongest competitors commented

The race had a great setting with the iconic skyline in the background – and the weather was also much better than last year. Kyle Larson seemed to have fun throughout Loop 110 as he battled van Gisbergen until the end.

Finally Larson said van Gisbergen might have had even more funTheir battles were entertaining as the race progressed and there was still a lot to take away from Saturday’s race.

“I had a blast,” Larson said. “He was obviously a lot faster than me and I think he had fun just playing with me. I wanted to use this race to learn and I wanted to take the first opportunity I got to race him. We wanted to give each other space because it was early, but you never know if I’m going to get a chance to race him and learn racing technique as the race goes on. So that was high on my agenda and I think I learned quite a bit racing him and creating different angles and all that.

“I think today was a success. Obviously we’d like to win, but our car just wasn’t quite as good as his. He could just exit Turn 5 much smoother than I could. I was just bouncing so aggressively. I couldn’t accelerate. Same thing in Turn 9. I just couldn’t hold the speed that he could. If I held just a little bit too much, which wasn’t even close to the speed he was getting there, I would just pull out and get away. And that continued until Stage 11. It was a really fun race, even though the restarts at the start of Stage 3 were cool.”