The race winner had high praise for the teenager who led laps in his series debut.
Following his first career win at the Circuit of the Americas, Shane van Gisbergen had high praise for the youngest driver in the field Saturday evening, the 17-year-old Brent Crews.
Crews became the youngest driver to lead a lap in the O'Reilly's Auto Parts Series when he drove past van Gisbergen and fellow teenage phenom Connor Zillisch to take the lead on the lap 24 stage two restart.
What a restart for the 17-year-old @Brentcrews who is making his @NASCAROReillyAP debut! pic.twitter.com/DDsgTx42JD
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) February 28, 2026
"That was awesome to watch. He's in the 19 car, yes?" Van Gisbergen asked. At the start, he was driving like crazy. I couldn't drive like that; I’d be worn out in two laps. But yeah, I saw him doing burnouts, and I knew it would be a matter of time, but he was just crazy on the limit, and it was really cool to watch and really close to the bundles and off the track. So yeah, he looks like he's an amazing talent, and I'm sure he'd be really good in not much time. So yeah, it's fun to race him, but I kind of knew it was going to not last long."
Crews would hold onto a respectable top ten finish, finishing just one spot shy of the top five.
van Gisbergen is no stranger to working with successful teenagers, as he begins his second full season in the NASCAR Cup Series with 19-year-old Zilisch set to battle it out with him on road courses. While the two only had serious battles for the lead in the opening stage, Zilisch suffered a broken brake rotor after hitting an edge early. It's a testament to the races to come, as the two will be seen as the drivers to beat in each of NASCAR's four Cup Series road-course races this year.
Before Zilisch fell to the back, he and van Gisbergen were surprised when Crews dove deep into turn one to take the lead. The 17-year-old would hold the lead for 5 laps, becoming the youngest driver to lead a NASCAR O'Reilly Series race. The age limit was just amended at the end of last season to allow 17-year-olds to race in the series; beforehand, Zilisch held this record, leading and winning in his series debut shortly after his 18th birthday.
In his post-race press conference, van Gisbergen also addressed the 'dueces' hand sign he gave his competitors as he motored through for the lead for the final time, adding cheekily that Zilisch in the No. 1 car was also using hand signals towards him to announce the number of his car for the race.
"I think that's still amazing that's kind of like every car I've drove, you have windows, right?" van Gisbergen said. "So you can't signal to other drivers. So I still find that fun, and Connor and I were having fun. He was telling me which number his car was a couple of times, which is nice. Yeah, it was cool. It was nice of those guys to let me through on the inside, so I was just waving."
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