Perkins T-shirt omen pays off for van Gisbergen

Shane van Gisbergen says he will wear Larry Perkins shirts he purchased “with pride” after his Albert Park success.

Van Gisbergen claimed the Larry Perkins Perpetual Trophy, having scored the most points across the four races.

The points leader won Races 7 and 8 in Melbourne, having raced from 23rd to third on Friday.

A tyre failure ruined his Sunday charge, with van Gisbergen second at the time behind Chaz Mostert.

However, he had accumulated enough points to seal his first Perkins Trophy.

It came after the Kiwi purchased from retro Perkins shirts off the six-time Bathurst winner’s son Jack.

Perkins senior presented van Gisbergen with the special trophy on Sunday.

Van Gisbergen was moved by the achievement, having idolised Perkins in his youth.

“It was cool to be presented the trophy like that,” van Gisbergen said after the race.

“It’s a real privilege to win this one; I actually bought some shirts off Jack the other day.

“I’ll wear them with pride tomorrow. I love Larry and what he’s done for the sport.

“Even seeing him now, with all his projects and what he and Jack still do.

“How enthusiastic he still is, and what a great character he is.

“It’s a cool privilege to win that that.”

Van Gisbergen’s Saturday dominance was bookended by two challenging races, which reaped two different outcomes.

A qualifying disaster was quickly overhauled and turned into a breathtaking charge through the field on Friday.

Come Sunday, and the Perkins Trophy was van Gisbergen’s to lose.

That he nearly did due to the puncture, but his closest rival David Reynolds didn’t finish at all.

Regardless, finishing down the order stung van Gisbergen, who couldn’t hide his disappointment in missing more silverware.

“I thought the first race would be our bad one,” he said.

“We had a bad qualifying, but we sort of fixed that.

“I’m pretty happy, but I always hate missed opportunities as well.

“We obviously got the most points as well, which is great.

“But we should have smashed everyone by more, which is a shame.”

Van Gisbergen will carry a 144-point series lead to Perth later this month.