Shane van Gisbergen flexed his road-course muscles in a big way by notching his first Busch Light Pole Award of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season for the Go Bowling at The Glen (Watkins Glen International) on Saturday, May 9.
The event’s qualifying format at Watkins Glen International consisted of a single session. In this session, the field of 38 was given 35 minutes to post the fastest qualifying lap amongst one another, and all competitors qualified simultaneously. At the conclusion of both group sessions, the fastest competitor among the two groups was awarded the pole position.
During the qualifying session, van Gisbergen, who was the 11th-fastest competitor in practice earlier on Saturday, posted his best lap at 123.937 mph in 71.165 seconds. Van Gisbergen’s lap was enough for the three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, to secure the pole position over Michael McDowell.
With the pole, van Gisbergen notched his fifth Cup Series career pole position, all of which have occurred on five distinct road/street course venues. In addition to securing his first Cup pole at The Glen, he also recorded his first pole since Sonoma Raceway in July 2025 and the third pole of the 2026 season for Chevrolet along with the first for Trackhouse Racing.
Van Gisbergen, who is currently campaigning in his sophomore season in the Cup Series division, is currently ranked in 19th place in the 2026 driver’s standings and he trails the top-16 cutline to be in Chase contention by 27 points. Having scored two top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 21.0 through 11 Cup events in 2026, van Gisbergen will strive to contend for his first victory of this season and reignite his road course magic after winning five times in 2025. Despite finishing in third place during Friday’s Craftsman Truck Series event at The Glen, van Gisbergen is also competing in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series event at The Glen with JR Motorsports as he strives to sweep both the O’Reilly and Cup main events.
“The [No. 97] guys did a good job tuning [the car] what I needed for the one lap,” van Gisbergen, who is striving for rear tire grip for Sunday’s main event, said. “The Superfile Chevy was really good, but all Trackhouse [Racing] cars in the top five as well. We got some good cars here this weekend and hopefully, we can capitalize on that tomorrow.”
Van Gisbergen will share the front row with Michael McDowell, the latter of whom clocked in his fastest lap at 123.488 mph in 71.424 seconds. Sunday’s Cup event at The Glen will mark McDowell’s first time starting on the front row in 2026.
Austin Cindric (fastest during Saturday’s practice), Ross Chastain and rookie Connor Zilisch, the latter two are teammates with van Gisbergen at Trackhouse Racing, will start in the top five, respectively. Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs completed the top-10 starting grid, respectively.
With 38 competitors vying for 38 starting spots, all made the main event.
Watkins Glen – Qualifying Position, Best Speed, Best Time:
- Shane van Gisbergen, 123.937 mph, 71.165 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 123.488 mph, 71.424 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 123.452 mph, 71.445 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 123.445 mph, 71.449 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 123.386 mph, 71.483 seconds
- Joey Logano, 123.319 mph, 71.522 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 123.317 mph, 71.523 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 123.215 mph, 71.582 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 123.214 mph, 71.583 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 123.159 mph, 71.615 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 123.150 mph, 71.620 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 123.092 mph, 71.654 seconds
- William Byron, 123.074 mph, 71.664 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 123.067 mph, 71.668 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 123.014 mph, 71.699 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 122.973 mph, 71.723 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 122.946 mph, 71.739 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 122.918 mph, 71.755 seconds
- Cole Custer, 122.761 mph, 71.847 seconds
- Denny Hamlin, 122.749 mph, 71.854 seconds
- Kyle Busch, 122.687 mph, 71.890 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 122.600 mph, 71.941 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 122.566 mph, 71.961 seconds
- Erik Jones, 122.548 mph, 71.972 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 122.502 mph, 71.999 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 122.398 mph, 72.060 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 122.386 mph, 72.067 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 122.339 mph, 72.095 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 122.293 mph, 72.122 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 122.289 mph, 72.124 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 122.249 mph, 72.148 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 122.059 mph, 72.260 seconds
- Zane Smith, 122.052 mph, 72.264 seconds
- Josh Berry, 121.464 mph, 72.614 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 121.426 mph, 72.637 seconds
- Cody Ware, 120.493 mph, 73.199 seconds
- Josh Bilicki, 119.044 mph, 74.090 seconds
- Katherine Legge, 115.299 mph, 76.497 seconds
The 2026 Go Bowling at The Glen is scheduled to occur on Sunday, May 10, and air at 3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
