Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Shane van Gisbergen Interview

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Shane van Gisbergen joins Kevin Harvick on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour to break down his transition to NASCAR and the strong start to his season as he continues to prove himself on both road courses and oval tracks. In this episode, Harvick sits down with the former Supercars champion to discuss the biggest adjustments he has faced moving into NASCAR, how he has improved on ovals, and why switching to the No. 97 car carries personal significance for him. SVG also shares how his success in NASCAR is growing the sport’s popularity in Australia and New Zealand, what challenges he continues to face adapting to stock car racing in the United States, and what goals he has set for the remainder of the season. 0:00 - Intro 1:52 - Offseason Conversations With Trackhouse Racing 3:20 - Transitioning To Racing In NASCAR 8:27 - First Time Racing A Car 9:28 - International Support As A NASCAR Driver 12:42 - Cultural Differences Of Racing In The US 14:32 - Expectations At Trackhouse Racing 18:32 - Favorite Oval Races 20:05 - Significance Of Number 97 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I still feel like a rookie in some ways like I'm still learning so much. The new generation, they really don't give a damn. They'll just hit you for no reason. The amount of Kiwis and Ozies, that were at Daytona was epic. What's more expensive? Racing or earning a farm? Horses are a money pit. I clean swimming pools, I painted fences.

Hopefully when I finish, people think of me as 97. Welcome, thanks for taking the time. As always, I appreciate it. We wanted to just catch up with you. I think just going back to the start of your second full-time season, had a couple ovals now, but what's it been like just being able to go through the winter, start over again, and kind of wrap your arms around everything that you guys have going on? Yeah, it's quite a bit different winter to last year or summer.

I spent it in New Zealand again. But yeah, came back and it was good. Last year was a little tough, like I was new, the team was new, within trackhouse, a lot of new people and there was a lot of learning process for everyone and we got really good people retention this year a lot of continuity and i think that makes a big difference working with stephen again and all the crew guys really there's only sort of been one change and i think um we sort of just carried the momentum and building blocks we've sort of been doing the last half of last year but it feels like i mean i don't know how you feel it feels like you've been here for a long time

I don't know if it's just because the way that you came in and you started winning and everybody recognized that you immediately were here right off the bat. Does it feel that way to you? Yeah, it's still gone quick, though. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's been two full seasons already. It has gone pretty quick, but I still feel like a rookie in some ways. Like, I'm still learning so much. When you go back and you kind of analyzed last year from everything else that you've raised in the past, when you go back and you say, okay, this is what we need to work on this year.

What was the off-season conversation like with Steve and Stephen and Justin and just your team in general is, okay, this is what we need to do different to get going next year? I don't know if we've really talked about it much. It's just kind of... We're going to have to have another meeting then. Yeah. We're kind of just all on the same wavelength. Like, I think the second time we went back to tracks, like the gains were so big and we've really got a notebook at most tracks now. And I think just every weekend we seem to be learning something and I don't know, it's a lot of fun working with those guys every week.

It's fun to go in the shop on a Monday and do our team meetings and I don't know, it just feels like it's stuff snowballing. And there's no like goals or expectations. We just keep getting better. And I think once that stops and we stop learning, that's probably when we need to get together and figure things out. But yeah, I think we just keep learning and keep getting better at the moment. Has Stephen ever raised his voice on the radio yet? Have you ever heard him yell? Yeah, probably Darlington.

All right. Yeah, Darlington. I'm happy for that. Yeah, he got wound up and, you know, we were struggling at that one. But I think the thing is with him, we sorted it out the next week and he needed different information from me. And yeah, it's hard on those hot days not to throw the toys out of the cot. So, yeah, we got better. When you look at the transition that you had, what's been the, this just Gen 7 car?

is a little bit different than what I raced for most of my NASCAR career. But what's been the hardest thing to kind of wrap your arms outside of the road courses, or even road courses? It's probably different than what you wanted and what you have available to change. What's been the hardest thing to wrap your arms around to get used to? No practice. And then one lap of qualifying. So you kind of drive out on a track and you only get two or three laps on a tire.

And then the grip really drops and then you kind of get comfortable. And then you've got to go and do qualifying and you get one corner to feel what you got. And it's just so hard to just go and do it. I'm always, I've been someone who needs time to build up and ease into something. And whereas here, everyone can just switch on so fast and just go and not care about the consequences, it seems. So that's probably been the biggest adjustment and something I got a lot better at later. How has it been in the transition? Because this is kind of full contact.

I know as we've talked in the past, that was something that was, that was something that was, that was, was hard to get used to, but it seems that you've settled into moving people out of the way when you need to or giving it back to somebody. Has it been hard to change kind of your mindset on just the etiquette of how you race? It's been hard to embrace it, I guess. Like it's so different. You know, like some of the old boys race very different to the younger guys. Like the new generation, they really don't give a damn.

They'll just hit you for no reason and have no patience, where I feel like the older guys will set up. a pass more, have a bit more patience, or just knock you out of the way when you deserve it. I feel like it's very different. You kind of need to know who you're racing and I'm learning that. But yeah, I feel like everyone's approachable when you have a problem and you can work it out and you move on pretty quick. So you mentioned the practice piece of it. You go to the sim, obviously. Do you use it as much on ovals or do you use it more on ovals or the road courses? We've probably used it less and less. I find the sim you get too much of an idea about something and you go there and it's not the same

and you might be stuck in your ways or techniques. So I get more out of watching videos really and SMT stuff and just study the good guys, see what they do and try and emulate that. I find like the Sims are good and the teams really love the Sims for setup. But as a driver, I kind of get more out of video stuff. Do you get involved in the setup stuff?

Because from the outside looking in, I view you as kind of a nerd as far as the data and stuff because I shouldn't say nerd. I should say student because you're good at analyzing that stuff and critiquing yourself. Is that something that you've always done? Yeah, I guess that's fair. Like I love understanding why a car works and what makes it fast, but whether it's got a 500 pound spring or a 1,500, I don't care. But I want to know the difference of what it feels like and be able to help guide the team in the right way. So definitely the road course stuff I feel.

like I've influenced that a bit, but the Oval, I don't know what's good yet, but I love learning about it and understanding the differences of my style and what the, you know, like a crossweight offset that I run different to Ross and understanding why I'm different. It's cool to learn about that. So when you look at your, like on the Oval stuff, when you look at your team, last year you had Daniel and Ross. This year you've got Connor and Ross. Are there characteristics that you look at and you're like, how do you drive the car that way? That you've developed yourself, that have become what you want in the car and you know that. Yeah, especially Daniel.

His driving style was very different to Ross's. And I kind of moved towards Ross's style. And then, but our setups have to be different the way I seem to drive. And then Conner's come in with a clean slate, but basically, and he's very different again. So it's kind of cool figuring that out. And it'll be cool watching him go through the process I did last year. How much do you think that your maturity has helped you with where you're at with your age? I view your racing IQ as super high.

If you would have done this 15 years ago probably would have been a lot different, right? You look at a kid like Connor. Yep. Just going to get swallowed by the world with everything that you've got going on. It's information overload. He's obviously fast, but there's just way more to it than that. How do you think that has helped you with everything that you've experienced in your racing career, being able to move across the world and do all the things that you've been able to do in the cup car and be comfortable with it?

Yeah. I think it certainly helped, but if you reference to Connor, like the tools and the experience the kids have over here at this age, it's amazing how far ahead he is being 18 and when I was 18. It's very impressive the grounding kids have here and you see it with Keelan as well. It's very, very cool. But yeah, I think it has helped me like bringing different outlooks on everything and trying to help even with processes in the team, driving for a lot of other teams, maybe things they've done better and with. debriefs and stuff like that. So I feel like that's kind of helped us get better as a team too. So yeah, hopefully I've added to positive things. So when was the first time you got to race a car? Like a full-sized car. Probably. How old were you? And single-seaters would have been 2004.

Yeah, 15. 15. Over 20 years ago now. By the time you're 15 here and today in the in the in the US, that's hard to explain to people all around the world. It's probably weird to Yeah. Like when the rules are just different. Yeah, so I moved to Australia to race when I was 18, but yeah, it seems to be the kids are in late models when they're 15 at the latest here. It's very different. Yeah. You've had a great start to the year. You ran well at Daytona.

You had a great finish at Atlanta. I think you would assess that as a success for the first two ovals. Is that fair? I think so, yeah. I think we had a good run at Daytona. Like I felt comfortable running up front and cars felt really good. And then Atlanta, we made it harder than we should have. But yeah, like we've had speed, which has been great.

And I'm still making a few mistakes, but it's part of learning. But definitely feel like we're on the right track speed-wise. So you're on a pretty short list of international winners that have won in this sport. And I just, I wonder, I'm curious because when you go home now, how do they, what's the perception of what you're doing now? embraced it? Are there more NASCAR fans at home? How did that go for you when you went home this year after being winning five races? This year I didn't really do anything public. I sort of just stayed with my friends but it's been amazing seeing the social media and how many people follow the races and say they don't go to work on

Mondays. It's all Monday mornings there. It's been awesome to watch the just to watch the race. Yeah, they're all Monday morning races for us or for them over there and yeah. about the support and all the news articles every week on the on the racing websites there it's been yeah it's been pretty humbling to see how many people support me and really really cool and then people that come to the races like the amount of kiwis and ozies that were at daytona was was epic it was pretty wild we had we had a couple of Australians that that we had on the on the pre-race just given asking questions and wanting to know that's that's quite a commitment but i think when when you look at that i mean how do you how do you how do you

view the growth of NASCAR in that part of the world. Like I saw you did the red bowl stuff with your Red Bull teammates from from F1 and drifting. When you go do those types of events, are they curious about NASCAR and what's happening here? Yeah, and they all just ask why the ovals are so difficult. That's the number one question. But yeah, what do you tell them? I mean, it's just so hard to explain. It's like, you know, why they struggle on a road course most drivers because they haven't done it all their lives. It's a completely different disciplinary driving. Like the way the cars are set up to only turn one way,

how they feel when you land in the banking, and the aerod disturbance from the others, I don't know where they start. It's a completely different sport. For me, when I went to Europe, they think it's a four-car garage and you go to the dealership and pick up a car and get a group of guys to work on it.

Do you think that they, Do you think globally people understand how sophisticated NASCAR racing is? No, and I didn't. Before I come here, they look. And it's like the sport likes to think it or tell people about that, that they're simple big V8 American race cars. But, you know, up the road at the Chevy Tech Center just blew my mind. The first time I went there and all the little intricate details on the car

and how much they matter and the tolerances, build quality, it's amazing. The technology here, and I don't think that side. gets told very well on purpose or not yeah does does NASCAR racing in general do you think it has more than what you had in the supercars oh yeah technology by far yeah really so they're a long way behind we we didn't have driving sims they had the setup simulators but nothing for you know the driving or the body scanning anything like that like the tolerances i think are 10 millimeters where it's here it's less than a millimeter the legal legal rules so it's very very different

What's been the biggest cultural shock as far as just coming to America to race and as far as the garage, as far as the people and how the motorhomes are set up? Because in NASCAR, everybody's literally six feet apart all the time. Yeah. In the motorhome lot, do you have, have you developed friends in the motorhome lot? I think it's the mindset is the biggest difference. I think what you have to be. when you have a bad weekend at home it would eat me for weeks whereas here i kind of let it happen for a day and then you've got to switch your mind back and reset so quick because it's

every single weekend and you've got to keep that level head all year whereas at home if you have a bad weekend it just kills you so it's so different here and and no one like when you make mistakes here it's people pick you up and let's go again do it better next time it's a very different mindset and it's quite fun in the nasker garage who's your who's your best buddy uh probably barber i'd say yeah really yeah yeah we get along pretty good baba yeah him and blaney and scottie and like we race on the simulator together and it's good well i could see scottie but i think that bubba i mean you guys were all together at the summer shootout but yeah we had fun there so yeah we seemed to get along and play video games

during the week and stuff like that so when you went and did the red bull deal you guys did the little competition. What was more fun to drive? The off-road truck or the lawnmower? Oh, the truck for sure. The lawnmowers suck. No suspension. Yeah. I was sore for that. Have you done anything like that before? I mean, I know you've done the rally car stuff, but was the truck similar to that? Uh, no, the truck's probably the most unique thing I've done, and especially being two-wheeled-rod. Sounds good. It was a rotary, so yeah. Yeah, it's crazy how much power it had and how good it sounded. When you go to the, when you, when you've been here for a year you've started your second season, you've had some individuals.

When you look at the track house team chemistry and the things that you guys have done in the past, Justin's very involved as far as he's in all the photo shoots, he's at the racetrack, he's in the middle of everything. Now that you've won, has anything changed within the walls? Ross always seemed to be the guy that you lean on. Has it become more difficult now that everybody's expected to win? No, I don't think so. I think it's still a good.

a good environment to be around. There's been a lot of changes like in the top end of management and stuff and I think it's kind of worked out pretty good and it's made some made for some good progress the last few months or last six, eight months. I think we've seen some good things happen there. So yeah, as far as drivers wise, I really got along with Daniel and loved him as a teammate. But yeah, it'd be interesting to see our corner slots in after a couple of months. He's awesome at the moment and whether we race well together it's yet to be seen but yeah, love having them around. Well, it's going to be competitive and I think that when you add in the sponsorship and

I think for you that that's been one of the biggest surprises to me is just the impact that you've had with sponsors that you've had. You were a big part of bringing Red Bull back and I think that you know sometimes to me I think people underestimate the value that you have. have from my marketing side because you are pretty quiet yeah and you know you you do the things that you do on the racetrack but there's that international appeal that goes with all the things that come with the brands that you have on the car yeah do you recognize that yeah start too now but um like it was amazing that red bull came along with me yeah as a personal sponsor but it's not

just them yeah of course but um yeah it's cool i guess you're right i am a little quiet but um um um Yeah, just being different I think is good in some ways as well having a point of difference and Yeah, trying to put on a show as well kind of helps too. I love the fact that you actually Understand the showmanship piece of it because it's it's part of your job. Yeah, 100% and doing the burnouts and and doing all the things that I mean still the Sonoma burnout in the Xfinity race was probably the most epic burnout I've ever seen with Austin Hill. Yeah, did that just do you think about? that stuff, the showmanship piece of it? Yeah, once he did the fingers at me. Yeah, this one's for you.

So that burnout was for him, but yeah, you just see how much people love it and react to it. And it's pretty hard to beat a good burnout, isn't it? Especially when the other guy's got his finger hanging out the window. Talk about the ovals this year. We talked about it a little bit earlier. And I'm sure you're sick and tired of answering the oval questions, but what is the expectations? You said you don't set goals, but I think the expectation this year has to be for the ovals to be better now that the point system is what it is.

How does the point system change? Where are you at with the oval stuff in as far as your mindset? Because, I mean, you're going to win on the road courses at some point. It's not a given, but it's the expectation. So what are the thoughts of where you think you need to be on the ovals to make the playoffs or to make the chase and do the things you need to do to get to the end? the year. Firstly, I definitely need to qualify better more consistently because stage points are just so important and I never really was strong at the start of oval races and you know you've got to score those stage points now and accumulate as many as you can. So starting up front will help,

especially at tracks I've starting to get a handle on. I think that'll really help and just got to show improvement. Like Phoenix, Bristol, they're probably my worst tracks and just need to get better at those ones and understand why I'm struggling at them, but they're difficult tracks. So what are your, what are your favorite ovals? Which ones do you like the best? What style? Do you like Super Speedway, short tracks, intermediates? I kind of like all of them. Like I liked New Hampshire. That was, I ran decent there and it was a fun track with all the different lanes. Vegas is pretty cool. That's one of the most exhilarating qualifying laps you'll ever do. And yeah, Vegas, Atlanta, they're fun. Yeah.

So that you would categorize which section has been the Bristol? Bristol's just tough. Yeah. Bristol's been the toughest one for you? Yeah, 100%. Like it's just a rush when you get there, how dynamic that track is. And you know, you think you're going well on the bottom and someone passes you on the top. So you go up there and, oh, we're going good.

And then someone passes you on the bottom. It's just, it's crazy how fast pace it is. And then in 15 laps, the lead is coming. Like it's, and they're halfway through the field. It's ridiculous there. It happens really quick. Yeah. And the hardest part, the hardest part for you is probably just getting used to just the load on the car and trust in the banking.

Have you ever raced on anything with banking before this? No. No. And you just can't believe the car sticks when you drive it into a track like that. And the concrete feels so different there. And then to throw it in, they have that tire lottery there when the tires fall apart. So it's so tough. Yeah.

You've never raced anything that has tire fall off like that, I would assume. Yeah, we had a couple of tracks like that. Supercars, like the old Darwin and Perth. used to really bad, so that kind of helped a little bit, but still very tough. Yeah. When you look at the number on the side of the car this year, I know that that means a lot to you, and I know a lot of our fans probably, some have heard, some haven't. It screwed me up, by the way.

I still call you in the 88 car for the first two races, but now in third race, I kind of got used to the fact that you're in the 97. Just talk about the significance of the 97 and how it has. has been in your family and racing career. Yeah, so the start of it was it was dad's sprint car number. And when I started racing in quarter midgets as a kid, our cars were painted the same and same number. And we just kept it as a family number all the way through.

And everything I raced, even professionally, we'd try and have the number. And it was pretty cool. So when Justin suggested it last year, you know, Daniel kind of got known as the 99 and would have felt weird if someone ran that and Connor wanted 88, that's what he had in Xfinity. So it worked out really well.

And even now when I walked into the shop the first few weeks, I went to the wrong car. Went to the wrong car. Well, that makes me feel better. But, yeah, I'm just proud of having it. And as I've said many times, like, everyone knows, like, you know what number Dale Earnhardt was. You know what number you were or Jimmy Johnson.

Like, it's they're synonymous with their number. And hopefully, when I finish, people think of me as 97. So pretty cool. So when was your, you mentioned all the old driver? Did you follow NASCAR at all? I did a little bit, especially when Marcus raced. And then when he stopped, I kind of stopped watching it. Yeah, but...

So who was your favorite driver? Aside from Marcus. Probably Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart. Yeah, yeah. Why'd you like Tony Stewart? Because he threw stuff, made it exciting or... Yeah.

He just was always having a crack. And when he wasn't winning, he was still the highlight, in the highlights, you know? He was always doing something cool. And then actually, sure, he was always doing something cool. Actually, Chicago, I got to work with Darien Grubb, who was his crew chief. So that's awesome. Yeah, Tony's back. So I think it's interesting how this whole sport has come full circle with what's old is new again.

It's seeing the grid last week or two weeks ago at Daytona with Tony in the field. And never in a million years that I think that I'd see Tony Stewart back at a NASCAR race. It's cool to watch. There we were. When you were a kid growing up, you know, You know, you talk about racing. How did this get started? You can't drive a car.

You talk about quarter midgets and all the things that you did. How did you convince yourself and your dad that you were, I mean, he raced, but that you wanted to race? I just would always go to his races. He was rally car racing or sprint cars and, yeah, I just always wanted to do it. We'd go to the Speedway or Dirt Track every Saturday and I just love getting there early to watch the kids races first off. and yeah, just, I always wanted to do it.

And I think all our friends growing up, too, were into racing, whether it was go-karts or they'd bring old cars around home and we'd sit on dad's lap and drive them. Yeah. Yeah, I never had a chance, really. That's all I wanted to do. So when you look at the cultural differences

between there and here, first, did you have a real job? No. Never have had a real job, ever. Pretty lucky, yeah. Yeah. So you never, did you, so you worked in the shop?

When you worked on your dad's cars, what'd you do? No, so when I was younger, I didn't really care so much for that, which, yeah, so was late to that side of things. Wait, you didn't care for work? Working on it or cleaning them or understanding why. I just was a driver. But yeah, that came sort of later on. But, yeah, I just, I don't know, I left school, did like a tech course for half a year and left that to race in Australia. So, yeah, not much.

I'd have got no other skills in life. I can't believe you've never had a real job. Nothing. Have you? I have. I worked at the fun park as the mechanic. I cleaned swimming pools. I painted fences.

That was my summer job. My dad always made me do something during the summer. So that wasn't very much fun. It's way more fun to drive the cars. When you look back at your time as you were going through the past, what's something that would surprise the fans that you did over there that? did over there that they don't know about? I don't really know. I guess like I when I was in that transition phase like I was doing single-seater's I had a

pretty decent chance or opportunity to do what's called A1 GP at the time a high-level single-seater series and but I loved V8 supercars you know and you could I could have gone to the Europe or World Route but I don't know I just always wanted to be V8 supercars and in some ways I wish I'd tried and saw could have seen how far I went, but I loved supercars at that time, and I'm glad I did that, too. Are you a MotoGP fan? Well, I am now watching Track House. I would watch a lot of the races, but not religiously.

They were always on at stupid o'clock at home, so it's hard to follow. Okay. All right. Last one. This is my favorite question. So you go from Auckland to Mooresville, Statesville. Mooresville, yeah. And now you're a farmer.

How did that happen? How in the world did you wind up with a farm? I grew up on land. Like, Mom always had horses, and we had sheep and cows and stuff like that. Did you feed them? No, I rode them when I was a kid. What did you do at home? I would help Mom a little bit, but I was not like I loved it.

But we had motorbike tracks. That was more important to me. But yeah, so then my wife, Jess, she loves the horses too and just wanted some space out here. And it's an amazing place. Like, it's a cool city, but not far out of the city is a lot of land. So it's a really cool place here to live. So what do we have on this farm now?

Too much. What's the most unique animal? Probably a cow at the moment. Yeah, rescued a cow from across the road. The neighbor was going to let it die. So we've rescued that and called it Annie. You've got Annie the Cow? Annie the Cow, yeah.

So we named her. We can't eat it. What's more expensive? or owning a farm. Oh yeah, there's horses are a money pit and nothing comes back. Yeah. Well, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate you taking time. Good luck on on everything that you have you have going on. You've done a great job. We appreciate everything that you've done for the sport and fun to watch to see what happens this week. Thank you, mate.