Shane Van Gisbergen Sweeps Charlotte ROVAL Poles in Cup and Xfinity Series

Shane van Gisbergen is officially a ROVALer. The legend of Australia’s Supercars Series, who moved to the United States this year to pursue a future in the NASCAR National Series, showed on Saturday why the future could be quite bright for the Trackhouse Racing development driver.

After capturing his third NASCAR Xfinity Series pole of the season, SVG followed that up with his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole, as he’ll lead the field to the green flag in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.

“Man, thank you to this Kaulig Racing team. It was a last-minute deal to come and run this Cup race here, so thanks to Matt (Kaulig) and the guys for letting me run their car, and for WeatherTech coming on board."

Van Gisbergen turned a fast lap of 82.704 seconds (99.246 mph) in the final round of the qualifying session, which allowed the driver of the No. 13 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to take the pole position by 0.057 seconds over 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick.

“Yeah, just make sure we race clean. I have to respect that there’s a lot of playoff guys around me and I have to race respectfully. But yeah, we’re here to win the race. I have a teammate up there with me, too, so obviously the team has done a great job. But yeah, hopefully we have a good day.”

Reddick enters the weekend’s Playoff elimination event as the seventh-place driver on the Playoff Grid, and he sits 14 points above the cutline. The Playoff field will shrink from 12 drivers to eight at the end of Sunday’s race around the 17-turn road course in Concord, North Carolina.

AJ Allmendinger, SVG’s Kaulig Racing teammate, will start from the third position, while Team Penske Playoff contenders Joey Logano and Austin Cindric will start from fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

The Penske duo were followed by a pair of Hendrick Motorsports Playoff contenders with Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott notching sixth and seventh-place starting spots. Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, and William Byron, another Hendrick Motorsports Playoff contender, rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400.

All but one Playoff contender (Chase Briscoe) will start from inside the top 18 in Sunday’s race.

Here is a breakdown of where all of the Playoff drivers will start from in Sunday’s race:

2. 45-Tyler Reddick
4. 22-Joey Logano
5. 2-Austin Cindric
6. 5-Kyle Larson
7. 9-Chase Elliott
10. 24-William Byron
12. 20-Christopher Bell
14. 12-Ryan Blaney
15. 99-Daniel Suarez
17. 48-Alex Bowman
18. 11-Denny Hamlin
25. 14-Chase Briscoe

The Bank of America ROVAL 400 is set to go green on Sunday, October 13. Television coverage will be provided by NBC beginning at 2 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the radio coverage of the race.

Photo: Tyson Gifford, Racing America