Pit Stops : Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course

• Wednesday, October 9th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

The Charlotte Road Course has been a serendipitous track for Hendrick drivers

For Hendrick Motorsports drivers, the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course can be a place of good omens.

In 2020, when the 2.280-mile, 17-turn circuit hosted the sixth race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Chase Elliott won that Round of 12 elimination race and went on to win the series championship.

A year later, in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson duplicated his teammate’s feat, winning at the Roval and claiming the title with a victory in the Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway.

Interestingly, all four Hendrick drivers—Elliott, Larson, William Byron and Alex Bowman—are above the current cut line entering Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 (2 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The four drivers, however, come to the newly configured road course with different agendas. Byron is the only driver to have clinched a spot in the Round of 8, a feat he accomplished on points after a third-place finish last Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

After matching his career-best finish (fourth) at Talladega, Larson can advance to the next round of the Playoffs by scoring 16 points on Sunday, no matter who wins the race.

Bowman is 26 points above the current cutoff and likely will try to score points in the first two stages to secure his spot in the Round of 8. Elliott is eighth in the standings, just 13 points ahead of Joey Logano in ninth, a position that may dictate a more aggressive approach to Sunday’s race.

Complicating the issue are dramatic changes to the layout. Instead of approaching the main grandstand, Turn 6 now directs the drivers toward the condominiums in Turn 1 on the NASCAR oval. It’s an uphill corner where drivers won’t be able to see the apex before they reach the braking zone.

The new Turn 7, which leads up to the banking of the oval, is a tight hairpin that Christopher Bell (second in the Playoff standings and the 2022 Roval winner) says has the potential to be a new “calamity corner.”

Turn 16, in the frontstretch chicane, has been tightened to a sharper radius.

“I kind of look at it like it’s a new race track, truthfully,” Elliott said. “That section of the track (Turns 6 and 7) is going to change the entire flow of the lap there, so I’ve been kind of approaching it as a new track with my preparation. I’ve spent some time in the simulator, just trying to really memorize the track and where the little bumps are.

“Typically, those track scans are pretty good. I think that’s probably one of the best things about the simulator, that a driver can go and get familiar with the track layout—surface content, roughness, so on and so forth. It’s really about all I feel like I can do until we get some time on track.”

Drivers will get their first non-virtual track time on Saturday during practice, with each competitor getting 40 minutes on the new layout before qualifying.

“I was able to turn some laps on the Roval in the simulator last week,” Larson said. “The changes to the track create another passing zone (Turn 7) but could also create chaos if drivers make late moves there.

“With our finish at Talladega, we’re in a much better points position entering this race than years past, but we still have to execute and put together a solid race this weekend.”

Needing more than just a solid race are the remaining Ford drivers in the field—Logano, Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney. Of the four, only Blaney, the reigning series champion, remains above the current cutoff at +25.

Briscoe and Cindric are 29 and 32 points below the line, respectively, likely needing a victory on Sunday to advance.

“We kind of have to go in here with the mind-set of winning the race, which simplifies things in a lot of ways,” Cindric said. “It certainly simplifies strategy thoughts and thoughts in preparation for the race.

“It’s not the situation you want to be in, but it’s something we’re certainly prepared to go after and fight for.”

• Bank of America ROVAL 400
• Busch Pole Award Pole Winner: Shane Van Gisbergen
• Age: 35
• Team : No 13 - WeatherTech Chevrolet
• Owner: Matthew Kaulig
• Crew Chief: Travis Mack
• Shane Van Gisbergen won the Pole Award for the Bank of America ROVAL 400 with a lap of 82704 seconds, 99246 mph
• This is his first pole in 12 NASCAR Cup Series races
• This is his first pole and third top-10 start in 2024
• This is his first pole in one races at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course
• Tyler Reddick (second) posted his 19th top-10 start of 2024 and his third in five races at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course
• AJ Allmendinger (third) posted his fourth top-10 start at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course It is his third in 15 races this season
• Carson Hocevar (20th) was the fastest qualifying rookie

• Sunday, October 13th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Kyle Larson dominates at Charlotte Roval, as Tyler Reddick stays alive in Playoffs

Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 was as much about Tyler Reddick’s heroic drive into the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs as it was about Kyle Larson’s continued domination of elimination races.

As Larson cruised to his second Playoff victory this season—and his second in an elimination race—Reddick charged forward from 26th after a Lap 84 restart and clawed his way to 11th—good enough to knock two-time series champion Joey Logano out of the Playoffs by eight points.

Logano’s exit was temporary, however. In post-race inspection, Alex Bowman’s Chevrolet failed NASCAR’s weight requirement and was disqualified, knocking the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet below the elimination line and restoring Logano to the Round of 8.

Mirroring his rout in the final Round of16 event at Bristol Motor Speedway, Larson grabbed the lead for the restart of Stage 2 and stayed out front for 62 of the final 82 laps at the 2.28-mile, 17-turn Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.

The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet crossed the finish line 1.511 seconds ahead of Christopher Bell, the only driver who could stay in the same zip code with the race winner. Third-place William Byron was 8.965 seconds behind at the finish.

With his sixth victory of the season, his second at the Roval and the 29th of his career, Larson led two other Hendrick teammates into the final eight—Byron, and fifth-place finisher Chase Elliott.

“Really, it’s the first time in my Playoff career I’ve not been close to the cut line, so it was good to kind of have a little bit stress-free of a weekend,” said Larson, whose previous win at the Roval came during his 2021 championship season. “I think the first time I’ve been here without crashing, maybe, besides the other time I won.

“It’s known that I don’t really use the sim (simulator) much, and I was in the sim this week. It really helped me get into a rhythm I think early on and helped us kind of fine-tune our car, too.”

Joining Bowman on the sidelines were Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (fourth on Sunday), Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez (31st) and Stewart-Haas Racin’gs Chase Briscoe (37th), leaving reigning series champion Ryan Blaney (10th) and Logano as the two Ford drivers left in the Playoff field.

If Larson’s dominating run stole the suspense from his victory, Reddick’s charge over the final 26-lap green-flag run provided nail-biting drama.

After pole winner Shane van Gisbergen (21 laps led) and Larson pitted from the top two spots in Stage 1, Reddick, the regular-season champion, stayed out in the lead to collect 10 stage points and an additional Playoff point on Lap 25.

A pit stop during the stage break mired Reddick in traffic for a Lap 30 restart, and then calamity struck. In the newly reconfigured Turn 7 hairpin, the new corner of chaos, Austin Dillon turned sideways in a melee that saw Reddick jump the curbing and smash into his 23XI Racing team owner Denny Hamlin.

Reddick’s car was severely damaged, and only a succession of pit stops throughout the remainder of the race—including a lengthy sojourn under caution to repair the left-rear toe link—made it competitive for the final run.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to flip, but I think I was behind the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.)—trying to work the move to the inside,” Reddick said of the wreck. “I got clear of him—I saw the 3 (Dillon) spun and everyone on the binders coming to a stop, and of course, me and my boss (Hamlin) get together. It was like I was going to do a front flip. This thing was absolutely destroyed.

“Huge props to everyone on this Monster Energy Toyota Camry. This thing couldn’t go within four seconds of what the pace was, and we just kept working on it. We were a lot better in Stage 3. This is how this place can be sometimes, but it is really nice to pull this off.”

It was crew chief Billy Scott’s call to bring Reddick to pit road for new tires under caution on Lap 82 that proved decisive. The fresh Goodyears were the ammunition Reddick needed to pass 15 cars during the final run and eclipse Logano’s point total by four.

But the drama became moot with Bowman’s disqualification.

“You just have to stay calm,” Reddick said. “You just have to stay focused. In those moments, it is so easy to lose control. Either way, I was going to drive the car as fast as I could. It just worked out for us that this thing was able to get back through the field and get us to the good side of the cut line.”

By the time the second stage ended, Larson and Bell had clinched spots in the Round of 8. Hamlin, who ran 14th on Sunday, also advanced. Bowman was nine points above the elimination line at the finish before the crushing disqualification and would have been the fourth Hendrick driver in the final eight.

At the checkered flag on Sunday, AJ Allmendinger was sixth, followed by Van Gisbergen, Logano, Bubba Wallace, Blaney and Reddick.

• Drivers Entered: 38
• Laps Scheduled: 109
• Margin of Victory: 01.511 Seconds
• Time of Race: 3 Hours 0 Minutes 3 Seconds
• Average Speed: 82.817
• Cautions: 5 for 13 laps
• Lead Changes: 7
• Green Flag Passes: 3,357 (35.0 passes per green flag lap)

• Bank of America ROVAL 400
• Race Winner: Kyle Larson
• Age: 32
• Team : No 5 - HendrickCarscom Chevrolet
• Owner: Rick Hendrick
• Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels
• Kyle Larson won the Bank of America ROVAL 400, his 29th victory in 362 Cup Series races
• This is his sixth victory and 16th top-10 finish in 2024
• This is his second victory and second top-10 finish in six races at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course
• Christopher Bell (second) posted his third top-10 finish in five races at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course It is his 20th top-10 finish in 2024
• William Byron (third) posted his fourth top-10 finish in seven races at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course
• Carson Hocevar (12th) was the highest finishing rookie
• William Byron leads the point standings by 9 points over Kyle Larson
• Alex Bowman's #48 vehicle was determined to be too light in post-race technical inspection, disqualifying the result and dropping Bowman to a 38th-place finish.