NASCAR Cup Series star admits he wanted to quit racing

NASCAR Cup Series star Shane van Gisbergen has revealed that he once wanted to quit racing after a fallout with one of his former teams.

The Kiwi made the switch to NASCAR full-time in 2024, first driving in the Xfinity Series before stepping up to the Cup in 2025, and so far this season, he has won two races in Mexico City and Chicago.

Ahead of his switch to NASCAR, van Gisbergen had a long career in Supercars and a successful one at that, with the 36-year-old winning three championships in 2016, 2021, and 2022, respectively.

However, things were not always rosy for the Kiwi, who has admitted that he almost stepped away from racing altogether in 2012 following his sixth Supercars campaign.

"In 2012, at the end of that year, I was out of racing. I wanted to stop, and I sort of did stop," van Gisbergen told The Athletic.

"And then Dad really convinced me to keep going, and we changed teams. It was a big legal s**tfight, and I ended up joining another team. It was really bad publicly, but I was able to just knuckle down and focus on my driving.

There was so much outside noise and legal s*** going on, and then I went out and won the first race with a new team. So it was really cool to just go out there and push through that. It was messy, but great."

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Shane van Gisbergen reflects on dark career moment

At the time, van Gisbergen was driving for Stone Brothers Racing, but he was unconvinced about the team's future under new ownership, who were taking things in a new direction that he did not believe in.

Eventually, van Gisbergen went on to join Tekno Autosports, where he would spend three seasons and win eight races, including one on his debut weekend in Adelaide, as he mentioned.

Soon, van Gisbergen would be thankful for sticking with racing, earning a move to Triple Eight in 2016 and going on to win his first Supercars championship in his debut season with the team.

The Kiwi would go on to spend eight seasons at Triple Eight and win two further championships before leaving the series altogether at the end of 2023 to pursue a career in NASCAR.

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