Speaking before the final, father Roy said the text had ended with UC, standing for "under control - a very good sign".
Family members were doing their best to keep their nerves under control during the race, yelling "push! push! push! push!", 'go! go! go!", "come on kiddo" and "go Ali!" as Shanks picked up the pace.
When she crossed the line for gold, the commotion was too much for the family cat, Sox, who showed he was a pretty slick mover too and ran from the room.
Before long Mr Shanks was finding it hard to keep up with the number of text messages flooding in, but expected the family would have to wait some time to be able to contact his daughter directly.
Gathered for the occasion were Shanks' parents Kay and Roy, sisters Nicola (24), Maxine (17), brother Derek (21) and grandparents Madelene and Watson Barkman.
They also considered they would have much less access to her than they had at the Melbourne Games.
The family have not seen Shanks since May.
She had been very focused on the Games after being disappointed in her performance at the world championships in March.
They were not sure how much pressure she would have been feeling to deliver New Zealand's first gold medal.
Mr Shanks said it was hard to know how much coverage of the Games the athletes saw, although they were aware she was usually a keen follower of the ODT online when she was away from home.
He was impressed with her time, which he estimated was about her third best, quite an achievement on what was considered a slow track and with such a short recovery time between the two rides.
Last night's event showed once again what a "big game player" Shanks was, he said.
"She loves the pressure. Loves it."
She was the same at netball - not that good at practice - but once on the court she would "play out of her skin".
