School’s out for summer, but apparently, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field didn’t get the memo. On Saturday afternoon, Shane van Gisbergen took the entire garage to road course racing school, and at the end of the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250, it was apparent that nobody had anything for the New Zealand native.
Race Results: Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma
Van Gisbergen, managing his fuel load over the closing few laps of the race, allowed Connor Zilisch to creep to within 1.324 seconds of the race lead, but that was in no way indicative of how bad of a beating Saturday’s race was.
The full-time NASCAR Cup Series competitor did admit that he had some nerves about whether he had enough fuel in the tank, and apologized to the fans for taking such a decisive win.
“A little bit,” van Gisbergen said when asked if he was worried about fuel. “Luckily enough, I think I saved enough early. Sorry, it wasn’t the most exciting. I guess boring is good when you’re the one leading.”
In all, van Gisbergen, driving the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, led a race-high 66 laps in the 79-lap event, as he stormed to his second victory of the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season and sixth career win in his 39th start.
After putting on a smoke show for the fans and then performing his customary rugby ball kick into the crowd, van Gisbergen was beaming about his latest triumph in the NASCAR National Series ranks, and the car he was given to drive on Saturday afternoon.
“Yeah, thank you to SuperFile and JR Motorsports, Chevy. What an amazing car, like, to lead like that, and the car was so good all race. Stoked to get another one for these guys,” van Gisbergen said.
For Zilisch, who rallied for the runner-up finish, it was another frustrating day, in what has been a rough season for the driver, who took the NASCAR world by storm a season ago.
After suffering a flat tire in qualifying, Zilisch would start the race from the 30th position. He would then suffer a pit road speeding penalty early in the race, and would have to flip strategy to regain some track position.
Ultimately, Zilisch feels he and the No. 1 team made the wrong decision to stay on track to take the Stage 2 win instead of flipping that Stage.
“Yeah, I don’t think we probably thought we were going to restart 12th when we stayed out there at the end of Stage 2,” Zilisch said. “Obviously, the numbers that [Crew chief] Rodney [Childers] was getting on the box allowed us to be aggressive and push that entire last run. A caution or something to bunch us back up would have been nice.”
Brent Crews, the 18-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing phenom, finished third in Saturday’s race, and with the podium finish, climbed back inside the top-12 of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings. With five races remaining until the Chase begins, Crews sits 21 points to the good.
Anthony Alfredo had potentially the best overall race of his professional racing career, and he capped it off with a fourth-place finish, marking the best finish of his stint behind the wheel of the No. 96 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet.
Alfredo was followed across the finish line by Parker Retzlaff, his Viking Motorsports teammate, to make it a double top-five day for that team.
Carson Kvapil, Corey Day, Sam Mayer, Jesse Love, and Sheldon Creed rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
