Van Gisbergen cleared Logano for the lead at the beginning of Stage 2 on Lap 94 of the July 19 race.
The Kiwi enjoyed a short spell at the front of the field until Lap 113 when the American returned serve.
Logano sold van Gisbergen a dummy on Lap 112, jinking to the inside before going to the outside to get to the right rear corner of the #97 Chevrolet Camaro.
They ran side-by-side for a lap until the #22 Ford Mustang moved clear. That ended van Gisbergen’s stint atop the pylon, which culminated in 49 laps led.
It’s the most laps van Gisbergen has led on an oval, eclipsing his previous-best 12 laps at Nashville.
Logano, meanwhile, went on to win. Van Gisbergen finished an oval equal-best fifth.
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“I knew that he had one groove that worked for him,” said Logano of van Gisbergen.
“He had the bottom lane, that was his number one. That was his money. That’s where it was going to be made for him.
“I knew that if I get him up off the bottom, the pass is probably going to be fairly simple from there. My first attempt was to try and get underneath him, but he really liked to cover.
“At this moment I showed it to him and then I swapped it back to the top just to get him to overdrive the entry a little bit and maybe get on the brake too early at the one-third to try and keep it on the bottom, get him off his marker a little bit, and then roll his top.
“That move actually worked here. The first move was to try get to his bottom, but he was not going to let it happen. He was going to make me move him out of the way to do it. It was just figuring out which way was the best way around him and doing it a smart way.
“The way our tyres are now, our tyres are wearing out again. It’s awesome. It’s a lot of fun. You have to think about that, it’s not just hammer city all the time and you just hammer, hammer, hammer and you’re going to pass them and you’ll be fine.
“Try, be smart, wait for him, watch him, see if he’s burning his stuff up, get him pressured a little bit, get him to screw up a couple of times, and then pounce on him.”

Although van Gisbergen ultimately lost out, it represented another important step in the stock car racing convert’s development.
Van Gisbergen said he listened to Logano’s recollection of the pass and took what he said onboard.
SVG drew parallels between his own moves against his rivals on road courses and the pass Logano pulled on him at the short oval.
However, the Trackhouse Racing driver said he was still a long way from being able to flip the script and put himself in the Team Penske driver’s shoes.
“Joey broke it down how he passed me. He said I was driving one-dimensional,” said van Gisbergen.
“I was only using the bottom and he faked me out, went to the top, forced me to brake at the one-third mark too much, get off the bottom, over-drove it.
“Exactly how he broke down how he put me into a bad spot is exactly what I do on road courses, but I don’t have that ability to do that to other people on ovals yet.
“There’s levels to it. I’m nowhere near that yet and it was very interesting listening to what he said and what level he’s at.”
Van Gisbergen said he is still learning how the Cup car behaves from track to track but conceded he has not mastered the art.
“I’m not naive, I have a lot to learn, but I’m getting there. There’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“I watched his video and saw how he set me up and trapped me on the bottom, sat on my door a bit. It’s really interesting.
“There’s so much you can affect with the air and the speed we do, even on the short ovals.
“It’s fascinating to learn that stuff, but applying it is another level again.”
Van Gisbergen will have a weekend off before the NASCAR Cup Series returns at Iowa Speedway on August 10.




























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