Morry Gash/AP
Shane Van Gisbergen on his way to winning the NASCAR race in Chicago.
New Zealand’s Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen has made a sensational start to his Nascar series debut by winning his first race amid wet and wild weather in Chicago.
Van Gisbergen hit the front with five laps to go and held out Justin Haley by 1.259sec to win the title on Sunday (Monday NZ time).
The Nascar website reported the 34-year-old Kiwi became the seventh driver to win his first start and first since 1963, when Johnny Rutherford won a points-paying qualifying race at Daytona.
The three-time Supercars titleholder lined up third on the grid for the started of the 100-lap race which was delayed late due to the road conditions and later shortened to 78 laps to avoid a post-sunset finish.
Christopher Bell won stage one after 20 laps after taking over on the eighth circuit.
Van Gisbergen was in the top three in the early stages and first took over the lead at lap 25, but he had to go to the pits one lap later to switch to slicks.
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Shane van Gisbergen started third for his NASCAR debut at Chicago Street Course.
At one point van Gisbergen dropped to 18th around the time of a pit change, but he later powered back up the field, moving into fifth and then third.
He moved up to second on the 67th lap and almost overtook Haley, but after a yellow flag Haley regained the lead.
Van Gisbergen trailed by 0.41sec after 70 laps but hit the front a lap later and had established a 1.6sec gap with two laps to go.
But then Bubba Wallace’s car was spun into Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s, which clipped the outside tyre barrier, leading to a caution and taking the race into overtime.
But when the race resumed van Gisbergen kept his cool and his lead until the end.
The near three-hour race saw seven lead changes involving five drivers.
MORE TO COME
