Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - SVG's Victory Lap

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Fresh off another masterclass performance on the road, Shane van Gisbergen (SVG) joins Mamba Smith on Victory Lap to break down his incredible win at Sonoma! From nailing the restarts to mastering Sonoma's brutal tire fall-off, SVG takes us inside the cockpit of his race-winning run. Mamba and Shane dive into the strategy that sealed the victory, how he’s adapting to the intense NASCAR schedule, and what this win means for his playoff momentum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

burnout this week? Oh, my God. Brother, chef's kiss. Unreal. Which run? Wow. Damn, he got me. What's going on? NASCAR Nation, your boy Mamba Smith, back in the house for the Kevin Harvick Happy Hour, victory left. And you know, you know, no one's surprised. You know, there might be a real relief, but no one's surprised to see Superman SVG back in the seat with us, man. What a run this weekend. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, thank you. It was pretty amazing week. Good to make up for the week before. It certainly wasn't easy. We're getting pushed along there. But yeah, really cool to get another one. You talk about making up for the week before. Was there any added pressure? Maybe that, not externally, but maybe you put on yourself to go to Sonoma, have a really good race. And by

really good. I mean like just go off and win the race. Yeah, I think so. I tried to not think like that, but yeah, there probably was, you know, especially in our points position, we really needed to capitalize on those races. And after not getting any points the week before, you know, we were trying hard to make up for it. And, you know, it was a lot of pressure.

I guess the car wasn't really good. And we expected to be up front, you know, qualifying six wasn't really that great for us. So yeah, really cool that we did a, the guys did a great job making the car better for Sunday. And when the race started to start moving forward, it was pretty cool. It seemed like you had to use a lot of, a lot of the tools in your toolbox to navigate and kind of get the car where you wanted to. And then obviously Steve Doran, your crew chief did a great job on making the proper adjustments. When you're trying to make it through, I know you like to dominate.

Everyone likes to dominate races and just go off and win, but it's kind of fun cutting your way up through the field. that first thing was really cool um you know we all sort of were struggling at the start trying to get the ties going and then picking my way forward i was like okay we're not too bad here and um i got to the 54 for the lead and yeah he was really strong i could tell he kind of had been saving till i got there and then once i got there he took off um so yeah when he flipped the stages or didn't flip them i guess um they went for points and that was probably a good thing it would have been a really tough race, racing two or three of those guys up there. And thankfully, he only had to race one. I started, actually sat beside Chase in the driver intros. And he was like,

yeah, my car was really good. He was looking forward to the race. I worried about him. And I could see him pretty much all day in my mirror. So it was a good way forward, racing forward with him. And at the end, he was, he was super strong. Not much of a poker player. Shane, you're usually like, I would not very good. And then you come out and you're pretty good. Chase's like, nah, mate, I'm good. I'm coming for you.

So that's pretty dope to be able to have that relationship with somebody. And then actually they kind of come to fruition on the racetrack. You say, you know, Ty Gibbs, obviously he has a lot of confidence on the road course. I feel like you have shown some of these guys a new way to race on the road course. And he kind of took, you said you kind of took your strategy a little bit with saving the tires early and then going when kind of you started getting close. Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's just been our strength of our car. And on the weekend it wasn't.

We really were eating up the tires. So, yeah, I tried to manage as much as I could. But, yeah, we still struggled in that last end. And the 19, really, he was catching up. You talked about that last end. And we talked about last week about how, you know, you felt like the competition was a lot closer than people were giving them credit for. And then the last in, they really were.

What was going through your mind, you know, especially with like about three to go, and you got a mirror full of the 19th? Well, it was probably about 10 to go. I started stressing. I started sliding and moving around, and then the gap just started incrementally closing. And then the last few laps, he was really fast. He made a mistake at turn one, and then the gap increased. And I thought, okay, we might be okay.

And then he just rapidly caught me back up. So, yeah, I was really struggling with my rare ties. had a bit of dirt from the guys in front. I kept sliding. They kept dropping wheels, and I'd struggle on that, and couldn't bring my tire temperature back down. And, yeah, I just ran out of grip, really. So lucky it was not one or two laps longer.

I mean, thank goodness. You used to driving the shitboxes back home, you know, in the dirt and stuff, so you could get through it. Who would have thought that that would have came up in a Cup Series race? But, that's Shane. The burnout this week? oh my brother chef's kiss unreal which one wow damn he got me that's a good call i i was standing on pit road for this one on sunday i just felt like you kept going and like shit's flying everywhere and

i just was like how did you feel tired to do this yeah i couldn't believe how long it lasted even on saturday it was it was awesome and yeah both races i mean it was almost an identical skid and having the guys there on the pit wall and doing the high-fi Yeah, it was awesome. Been lucky enough to win there a couple of times. And it's always cool with that big grandstand in front. And I mean, yeah, I couldn't believe how long it lasted. So I just kept going.

This kept going. It was great. So kind of looking ahead a little bit, you know, what are you looking at for your strengths? Were you guys looking to capitalize? What's kind of on your mind looking forward? Well, it's all points now. For us, we're right on that bubble, kind of,

on the for 16th. It's very tight, you know, from 14th to 20th, basically. So just got to do the best I can every week, no mistakes. Trying to accumulate points and getting our way into the chase would be, it would be epic. But the next eight weeks are going to be really, really tough, some tough tracks and super speedway in there as well. So anything can happen. That's right.

When you look at kind of into the chase, too, did, when we adjusted the schedule, because we were obviously we go to Charlotte but for a long time we've been doing the roble and now it switched back to the oval when that came down because we were pretty much already in almost all the way into the season did that change your guys the mindset of how you're going to attack the season or was it still kind of the same thing I mean I don't think so because it was in the playoffs anyway yeah obviously we'd want more road courses but that's one of my better ovals so you know it doesn't doesn't matter too much but um yeah certainly you've want it to be a road course, but can't help it.

This week, this week we're going to Chicago. Now, this is very different. It's like a new track for you all over again. So what have you learned from, you know, your experience of being a rookie and then, you know, your second year for like new tracks like this? What is kind of your, how are you going to attack Chicago land? I mean, it's going to be good having a longer practice to learn a new track. It looks very difficult from what I've seen on the, from the tire test.

footage a couple of months ago and very bumpy, high commitment. So, yeah, looking forward to that. All the footage I've seen everyone's wrapped around the bottom, but when I look at the racing stuff from years ago, it's all over the place. Everyone's on the fence, the middle, down the bottom. So it looks like a really cool racetrack. Hopefully it widens out and we can move all over the place. Definitely has some character.

You know, it's in Illinois. So like the frost heaves and the track kind of getting some bumps and then it's going to be It's going to be a handful, I think, for you guys, for sure. I was talking to some of the other drivers about the tires. You've mentioned tire management a couple times. And I just want to get your opinion. Do you feel like the tires have grip, half grip, and then they kind of hit a wall and just kind of drop off

and now you're managing differently? Or do you feel like they sustain pretty good through a whole run? Or is it more setup? Like, where do you kind of fall on that thought? I mean, it's different. Every track is different. You know, it's kind of felt like it was thermal at Sonoma. you could kind of make them recover a bit if you took it easy,

but other times it would be fall off and you just couldn't bring them back. So, yeah, it kind of just depends. It does depend a lot on your car setup and how you drive it. But yeah, I feel like the tyres are in a good spot, though. Like you can really make a difference as a driver and get the most out of them. And I've been with other tire deals and you really can't have influence on it. So I think this tire is really good and you can make the difference as a driver. Well, Shane, you're making the difference for that 88, uh, it's 97 group, excuse me, over at

Trackhouse. Looking forward to seeing you, uh, this weekend and keep climbing through the points, man. Step by step by day by day. Y'all just brick by brick, make it happen. We'll try. Thank you, mate. Thanks, brother.