Speaking on the Dale Jr Download, van Gisbergen detailed at length the lack of relevance between the machinery in stock car racing’s top two tiers.
After winning his Cup Series debut race in 2023 around the streets of Chicago, van Gisbergen was vaulted into a full-time drive in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (nee Xfinity Series) for 2024.
Following his introductory year to oval racing, van Gisbergen was elevated to Trackhouse Racing’s Cup Series squad.
Reflecting on his two full seasons to date, van Gisbergen said the cars behave completely differently between the top two series.
The Next Gen car fundamentally changed the category with geometry unlike any other stock car prior, with a totally new tyre construction, body shape, aerodynamic package and chassis dynamics.
What that has meant is the transition from the lower O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is even harder than before.
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That’s been evidenced by Ty Gibbs, who won the 2022 Xfinity Series but had to wait until his 131st start in the Cup Series to win a race despite being in top Joe Gibbs Racing equipment.
“I hate to say I wasted a year – there’s a better way to word it – but doing that learning year in Xfinity, it was not really,” van Gisbergen explained.
“It was good to see the lay of the land, learn the tracks, the country and the way it worked, but I almost should have been thrown in the deep end in Cup and learnt that car.
“They’re just so different.
“I love the Cup racing though. I find it pretty cool having to search for air and push and moving around, but it’s different.”
His Trackhouse Racing teammate Connor Zilisch knows the feeling all too well.
He dominated his rookie O’Reilly Series season with 10 wins from 33 races, but came up short in the winner-takes-all final to Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love.
It’s been a brutal introduction to the Cup Series for Zilisch, who languishes second-to-last in the standings with a season-best 14th at Circuit of the Americas.
His best oval finish is 16th at Texas Motor Speedway.
“People always tag me in social media posts saying ‘Oh, he needs to go back and do another year of O’Reilly’ and I’m like, you learn nothing,” Zilisch explained.
“It’s so different. On restarts, it’s a completely opposite mentality.
“In [O’Reilly] you drive it into the corner with the guy in front of you and try and get as close to their left rear as you can and in Cup you’re lifting at the flag stand to give yourself air on entry so that way you can get a run off the corner and go three-wide on the bottom or whatever it is.
“It’s so polar opposite. I run the O’Reilly races to have fun and enjoy it, but it’s almost like I have to clear my mind before I go into that race because everything I learn on Sundays is opposite.”
So what’s the fundamental difference between how the cars race?
How the cars interact with each other in dirty air is the most noticeable element, according to the pair.
“You feel the left rear drop, it packs air on the spoiler and drops the weight on the left rear and kind of drives off the left rear,” van Gisbergen explained of the Cup Series car.
“If someone comes beside you on the straight you feel the car go like that [leaning left] so it just pushes you out.
“Whereas in the [O’Reilly] car it’s the opposite – it lifts you up and slides you. You can pack the air [on the rear bumper] and it moves them.”
Zilisch added: “I feel the left rear go down and the front of the car picks up. You literally feel the car start to float and it completely takes off. It’s the weirdest.
“The front is numb when someone gets to that spot.”
Zilisch said mirror driving was a big part of racing in the Cup Series, making life difficult for the trailing cars.
The current model Cup Series car are particularly vulnerable to dirty air and have a tendency to understeer or “plough” through the corner while following another car closely.
Being buried in the pack has been van Gisbergen’s Achilles Heel. With lowly qualifying performances he has struggled to make headway in dirty air.
Nashville, however, was the exception where qualifying was rained out and he was started towards the pointy end of the field where he was able to race comfortably and finish fifth.
Van Gisbergen said the way the Cup Series cars behave in dirty air is a blessing and a curse given how easy it is to manipulate another competitor’s car.
“I had Ty Gibbs behind me at Nashville. He was much faster and my line was kind of a late arc,” van Gisbergen explained.
“I couldn’t turn on the rubber so I would enter high and exit low. He was shooting the bottom trying to get the air and I’d do the late apex, cut his nose off and I’d see him just plough wide.
“It’s the only thing I could do but I could see him ploughing wide,” he laughed.
“You can affect them quite a lot.”
Van Gisberegn and Zilisch continue their NASCAR Cup Series season at the Naval Base Coronado in San Diego on June 22.
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