NASCAR star Shane van Gisbergen appears to be back in good form after leaving Coronado Naval Base in a foul mood last Sunday.
The road course specialist's race was ruined by an Austin Hill mistake last weekend on the brand new street course, putting his Chase hopes in real jeopardy with this weekend's race at Sonoma the final non-oval track on the schedule.
Sunday is also the first race of NASCAR's In-Season Challenge, with Van Gisbergen matched up with a driver he's seen quite a lot of over the last couple of weeks, Ryan Preece.
He and Preece spent parts of this month's Pocono race exchanging gestures out of the window, before they made contact a couple of times – once initiated by each driver – in San Diego last weekend.
READ MORE: Five matchups to watch in the first round of NASCAR's In-Season Challenge at Sonoma
SVG: Preece is a good dude
Preece has been joking about being matched up with this weekend's overwhelming favorite in the first round of the knockout tournament, and posted a video featuring some clips from the pair's recent duels, captioned 'San Diego gave me a new mentality.'
“I see he’s been getting pretty lippy online, so that’s a little fun,” van Gisbergen joked this weekend. “We were giving each other s*** the other day from Pocono when he was throwing signs at me. He is a good dude. We had a little tussle last week and threw a s****y move on me and half-spun me, so I got him back.
"I look forward to it; it’s cool that there is something else to focus on. He’s been going really well at his road courses this year, so I’m sure I’ll see him on Sunday and it will be a tough but fair battle and see who gets to the next round. I look forward to it.”
NASCAR In-Season Challenge first round matchups
| Driver (Seed) | vs. | Driver (Seed) |
|---|---|---|
| Tyler Reddick (#1) | vs. | Alex Bowman (#32) |
| Austin Cindric (#16) | vs. | Brad Keselowski (#17) |
| Daniel Suárez (#8) | vs. | Todd Gilliland (#25) |
| Carson Hocevar (#9) | vs. | Zane Smith (#24) |
| Chase Briscoe (#12) | vs. | A.J. Allmendinger (#21) |
| Ty Gibbs (#5) | vs. | Austin Dillon (#28) |
| Bubba Wallace (#13) | vs. | Michael McDowell (#20) |
| Chase Elliott (#4) | vs. | Noah Gragson (#29) |
| Denny Hamlin (#2) | vs. | Ty Dillon (#31) |
| Erik Jones (#15) | vs. | Joey Logano (#18) |
| Chris Buescher (#7) | vs. | John Hunter Nemechek (#26) |
| Christopher Bell (#10) | vs. | Ross Chastain (#23) |
| William Byron (#11) | vs. | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (#22) |
| Kyle Larson (#6) | vs. | Riley Herbst (#27) |
| Shane van Gisbergen (#14) | vs. | Ryan Preece (#19) |
| Ryan Blaney (#3) | vs. | Josh Berry (#30) |
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