”I’d Be Massively Disappointed” – NASCAR Legend Dale Earnhardt Jr Sets an Extremely High Bar for the Triple Eight Driver

Picture this: you start off with a job. You not only excel at it but also shock everyone by doing something that nobody has done for the last 60 years. It is quite normal for everyone to have high expectations of you. And especially when your next endeavor is along the same line of work, people will expect the results to repeat themselves as well. But that builds enormous pressure on the person doing the job.

Shane Van Gisbergen, after confirming his career switch to NASCAR, has become the centrepiece of such high expectations. And with that, the pressure. So much so that even veteran NASCAR personalities expect a lot from him. However, Dale Junior has set the bar excruciatingly high for the Triple Eight Race Engineering driver.

Pressure: a privilege or a menace?

Amidst all the murmurs about who is going to make it to the playoffs, anticipations regarding how Van Gisbergen will perform in his upcoming race at the Indianapolis Road course on August 13 are just shooting up. The entire NASCAR community is polarized now. Different people have different opinions. Some say he will make it to the top 16, others say his place will be even higher. However, Dale Earnhardt Junior spoke to Mike Davis in a recent episode of The Dale Jr Download and, while doing that, he expressed his thoughts.

Co-host Mike Davis asked, “What do you think is a success for him at the Indy road course?”

Both of them came down from the winning standard that he has been holding since his debut win in Chicago and analyzed the chances of winning that the 34-year-old has in the upcoming Indy race. Will it be a top 20, or a top 15? Or will it go even higher?

Dale Junior shook his head and said, “I’d be massively disappointed in just a top 10.”

That is some pressure coming from a NASCAR Hall of Famer.

“If he’s confirming he has plans to pursue NASCAR full-time ride, I think he’s already got an idea of who this is with. The pressure’s on! He needs to go to Indy and back it up,” he added.

According to the former NASCAR driver and NBC analyst, Shane Van Gisbergen needs to dominate the laps at Indianapolis and pose a serious threat to the contenders in their run for the win. After all, it took a lot of effort to bring him full-time into the arena of NASCAR, so a mere top 5 finish would not be good enough for the team that has signed him.

Junior continued, “And if he’s going to go to all of the other road courses that we all know well and be just top 5, is that enough?”

Read more: Growth Was Stunted – Dale Jr’s Close Friend Reveals How His Decision to Leave His Father’s Team Ended DEI

Mike Davis thought that it was an excellent point. Dale Junior then went on to mention another name in the history of NASCAR who hailed from the world of American V8 Supercar, just like Shane, and had shown who the master of road courses was during his time.

Oval might take a while, but road courses should be an easy catch for Gisbergen, says Dale Earnhardt Jr

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NASCAR designed its next-gen stock cars in close proximity to the Australian Supercars. But the tracks in NASCAR are quite different. Especially while driving on ovals, a solid grasp of reflex, skill, and speed is crucial. You cannot just run your car at top speed, you also need to understand the grip of your tires, the air, and how much to decelerate while making a turn.

“I don’t wanna use the word struggle,” said Dale Junior, “but he’s going to be challenged at the ovals for a while.”

According to him, his teams will wait for him to gain that level of expertise. But in order for them to do that, Shane Van Gisbergen will have to show them what he is good at. Shane cannot afford to come anywhere below the top 5 or maybe even the top 3 so that his team can have that confidence in him. While talking about what his team will probably expect from him, Junior referred to Marcos Ambrose and his performance on road courses.

He said, “Every time we showed up at a road course, Marcos Ambrose was one of the top dogs. He would go to Watkins Glen, a track we all know very well, running b***s out with that 9 and 47 car.”

Now it is just a matter of time before we know if Shane Van Gisbergen will live up to the expectations revolving around his debut Indy race. Stay tuned in with us for more exciting news!

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