Van Gisbergen put the front splitter of his #9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro to the rear bumper of the #88 to upset Zilisch in the closing laps, but only to the point of unsettling the car.
Zilisch put on a defensive masterclass in the closing laps of the 79-lap race, beating van Gisbergen at his own game.
The Kiwi bemoaned fading tyre life in the final 10 laps but was able to attack Zilisch who was compromised on fuel.
The final lap was a thrilling affair with van Gisbergen trying on several occasions to get the nose of his car to his rear quarterpanel.
Speaking post-race, van Gisbergen said he did everything to pass Zilisch without crashing him out of the race.
“I couldn’t do it without wrecking him, so I just tried every trick I could,” van Gisbergen said.
“But he drove so well and couldn’t get him.
“I think it was the last lap into (Turn) 7, I got there but wheel-hopped, pushed him wide, and yeah… could have gone but just waited. I didn’t want to do it like that. I had a fun day.
“Yeah, second sucks, but I don’t know, I had a really fun race. I enjoyed myself. That’s why I race cars.”
Van Gisbergen said the mental shift from Supercars to NASCAR is something he is still getting used to.
While he knew that he could have pushed Zilisch out of the way into the final hairpin, van Gisbergen said that would set a standard he didn’t feel comfortable with.
“In this type of racing… like it ran through my head into (Turn) 11 on the last lap, you’re allowed to just run through people and bump them wide,” van Gisbergen explained.
“But I’m not going to do that. So I tried to do a crossover and just didn’t have the grip out there. I had a lot of fun, and hope he did too.”
Asked what he might do differently, van Gisbergen said he would be “more aggressive” but “wouldn’t do something stupid” if given a second chance.
Ironically, Zilisch used similar words a week ago when he came up short to van Gisbergen in Chicago.
“I probably wouldn’t have lifted out of (Turn) 7, but I’m not just going to hit people out of the way,” said van Gisbergen.
“I want to race and clean and hope people race me like that too.”
Van Gisbergen revealed post-race that Kyle Busch had confronted him about the pass on Zilisch in Chicago. As he explained, the discussion left him perplexed.
“It’s weird here in NASCAR,” van Gisbergen said.
“Like last week was a textbook pass. Everywhere else in the world, that doesn’t get spoken about. But here in NASCAR, I had Kyle Busch have a go at me after the driver’s briefing last week about it. And it baffles me, you know? But that’s just the way people race here.
“They expect room on exit, and I need to adapt that mindset a bit more, I guess. But put me in the same spot last week, I’ll probably do the same thing, and he would do something different. Just how it works here.
“He said I went into the corner with no intention of coming out two-wide. That just shows the mentality here of what they expect. Like I want to fit in here so I want to do that as well, but I don’t know, you’re going for the win.
“It baffled me a bit. He wasn’t upset, he was just Kyle Busch. It’s what he said. I have to listen, he’s well-respected and I respect him.”
Van Gisbergen will quickly turn his attention to the Cup Series. The 100-lap Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway is slated to start on Monday at 5:50am AEST.
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