Van Gisbergen is currently 15th in the series standings, with 12 drivers qualifying for the Playoffs in NASCAR’s second tier, and a race win a guaranteed way of achieving qualification (so long as 12 or fewer individual drivers win races).
There are three road courses to come in this year’s regular season – Portland and Sonoma next month, then Watkins Glen in September – not to mention the street race in Chicago, where the New Zealander last year won the Cup Series encounter in his very first NASCAR start.
“I haven’t really looked at the points too much,” he said before the most recent Xfinity race of the season in Darlington, where a finish of 15th saw him maintain position in the series standings but close the gap to the cut line.
“Obviously, you want to make the Playoffs and road courses are my best shot with that, but being able to point my way in would be amazing as well.
“I think my position in 15th is probably better than my pace at the moment; that’s just from being consistent and finishing all the laps.
“But, hopefully that helps me later on, and we can get closer to pointing our way in.
“If we win a race, we’ll be in as well, but I don’t really have expectations or a goal for myself.
“I just want to keep learning and keep getting better and do the right thing so that gets me in a seat in the Cup Series next year.”
The three-time Bathurst 1000 winner would probably have been locked into the Playoffs already if not for double Overtime at Circuit of The Americas in March.
He led into the second restart, at which point he was pushed wide by Austin Hill, and was eventually classified 27th once a penalty for a track limits breach was applied.
Van Gisbergen already had experience of the shorter COTA layout from his Supercars days, not to mention the road course background which most of his rivals do not possess.
Come August, he will return to ovals at which he has already raced, starting with Daytona.
“Hopefully, by the end of the year, I am semi-competitive on the ovals and can try and progress through [to the Playoffs] but that’s a long way away still,” added SVG.
“But, yeah, try and get in there.”
Van Gisbergen is on double duty this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, driving the #97 Kaulig Racing entry in Xfinity and its #16 Chevrolet in Cup.
Xfinity Practice takes place on Friday at 15:35 ET/Saturday at 05:35 AEST and leads straight into Qualifying, with three sessions on the Kiwi’s plate on Saturday ET/Sunday morning AEST, specifically the Xfinity Race then Cup Practice and Qualifying.
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