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Van Gisbergen Wins Sonoma, Ties Stewart’s Road Wins

6/29/2026

24 4 Full Breakdown

Summary

Van Gisbergen Wins Sonoma

NASCAR driver Shane van Gisbergen won the Sonoma Cup race, his second victory of 2026 and his eighth career win, tying Tony Stewart for second on the all-time road-course wins list.
Chase Briscoe finished second, 0.357 seconds behind van Gisbergen.
Ty Gibbs won Stage 1 and Stage 2 before finishing third.
Tyler Reddick finished last after a power-steering issue, dropping him one point behind Denny Hamlin in the championship.

Summary

Van Gisbergen Triumphs

Driver Shane Van Gisbergen turned his anger after a Naval Base Coronado wreck into a Sonoma victory despite calling his No. 97 Chevrolet “subpar.”
Driver Chase Briscoe blamed a mistimed downshift and a spin in Turn 1 with four laps left for his second-place finish.
Driver Christopher Bell raced with a tender, cast-bound wrist, finished fifth, after which NASCAR will move to Chicagoland on July 5.

Summary

Hamlin Takes Lead

Kyle Busch’s 217 points were removed from the NASCAR Cup Series standings after his death.
The removal gave Denny Hamlin a one-point championship lead, the first new leader after 18 races.
Austin Cindric now leads the Chase bubble by 12 points over Erik Jones, who fell to 17th and out of the Chase.
Alex Bowman improved from 32nd to 29th after posting a top-ten finish.

Summary

van Gisbergen Sweep

Festus Ezeli, 2015 NBA champion and NBC analyst, served as honorary pace-car driver and completed a hot lap at the Sonoma race.
Matt Cain, three-time World Series champion, delivered the pre-race invocation and joked about baseball players racing.
Shane van Gisbergen won the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 O’Reilly Auto Parts race on Saturday, completing a weekend sweep.

History

Historical Context

When NASCAR first ran a Cup race at Sonoma Raceway in 1989, Rusty Wallace claimed the Budweiser 500, establishing road-course racing on the West Coast. The event became a joint Cup-West Series fixture through 1997, then a solo Cup stop after a brief hiatus. In 2026 the shortened 150-mile Sonoma Cup saw Shane van Gisbergen tie Tony Stewart’s road-course win total, underscoring Chevrolet’s lasting dominance.

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Van Gisbergen Wins Sonoma

NASCAR driver Shane van Gisbergen won the Sonoma Cup race, his second victory of 2026 and his eighth career win, tying Tony Stewart for second on the all-time road-course wins list.
Chase Briscoe finished second, 0.357 seconds behind van Gisbergen.
Ty Gibbs won Stage 1 and Stage 2 before finishing third.
Tyler Reddick finished last after a power-steering issue, dropping him one point behind Denny Hamlin in the championship.

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