Concord, N.C. — It’s elimination time in NASCAR’s playoffs at the reconfigured Charlotte Motor Speedway, where changes to the hybrid road course/oval called The Roval have created an uneasiness for the drivers racing for a championship.
The field of 12 will be cut by four drivers after Sunday’s race and Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe are all below the cutline. William Byron is the only driver already locked into the round of eight, but Christopher Bell basically only needs to start the race to advance.
It means anything could happen on the reconfigured The Roval, the final race in what’s already been an unusual second round of the playoffs. A championship-eligible driver did not win at Kansas Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway, which took a chaotic turn last week at Talladega when 28 cars wrecked with five laps remaining in regulation to mark the biggest crash in NASCAR history.
Now comes The Roval, which Speedway Motorsports created in 2018 as an update to the traditional 1.5-mile speedway fans had grown weary of because of the lack of diverse courses on the NASCAR schedule. The original layout produced its own share of chaos, but drivers didn’t feel as if the course had enough passing zones.
Well, be careful what you ask for: The Roval now has a pair of “passing zones” that look a whole lot more like “crashing zones.”
The changes begin at Turn 5 where a high-speed downhill corkscrew has shown cars launching off all four wheels during simulator sessions. Instead of taking a right, the straightaway has been extended towards a new Turn 6 in a section that includes an elevation change that will alter driver visibility until they reach the crest of the hill.
The drivers will have to slow going into Turn 6, then make a sharp entrance into a tight left-handed Turn 7 in what is essentially a 180-degree turn onto the banked oval. The final chicane also has a sharper apex for the drivers to navigate at Turn 16.
“The reconfigure was designed to create more chaos. You’re going to have to convince me otherwise of that,” said Denny Hamlin. “They made corners sharper and tighter. They want you to drive straight in the corner, I believe, and wipe out whoever is in front of you, and then it’s going to be a parking lot in Turn 7. Then it’s just going to be who can navigate and get through there.
“There’s a blind spot when you go through 5 to 6, you go over a rise and your car gets really high. In the (simulator) it gets airborne. It probably won’t in real life, but we get to experience this new Roval config and I don’t know what else to say about it other than try to qualify and try to avoid the wrecks. That’s about it.”
Said title contender Alex Bowman: “Turn 6 is like 100% blind. You can’t see it until you’re there, which is pretty interesting. And Turn 7 is like making a U-turn on a one-way street, so it’s going to be chaos, for sure.”
Is that fair for the drivers, who must quickly learn a new layout while their title chances are on the line?
“It’s the same for everybody,” said reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney. “It’s going to be different for everyone and it will just be who can adapt to it the quickest. I’ve done some (simulator) work. We’ll see where it goes.”
Cup qualifying
Shane Van Gisbergen completed a Saturday qualifying sweep by winning the pole for both the Xfinity Series and Cup Series races.
Van Gisbergen is racing for the Xfinity Series title but will run his 10th Cup Series race of the season Sunday when he competes on the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The New Zealander is not one of the 12 drivers trying to advance in the Cup Series championship race. But he beat all the contenders in a Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing to take the top starting spot for Sunday’s playoff elimination race.
Tyler Reddick, the regular season champion and a title contender, qualified second in a Toyota for 23XI Racing. AJ Allmendinger, who is the reigning winner of The Roval Cup race and a perfect 4 for 4 at the track in the Xfinity Series, qualified third for Kaulig.
Allmendinger is also not racing for the Cup Series title, but he is in the Xfinity Series playoffs. That race was scheduled for later Saturday.
Joey Logano, who is below the elimination cut line headed into Sunday’s race, qualified fourth in a Ford for Team Penske. The field of 12 will be cut by four drivers Sunday and Logano, teammate Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe are all facing elimination.
Cindric qualified fifth in a Ford. He was followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in Chevrolets, then Brad Keselowski in an RFK Ford and Bubba Wallace in a 23XI Toyota. Keselowski was eliminated from the playoffs in the first round and Wallace didn’t make the field.
William Byron, the only playoff driver of the 12 already locked into the round of eight, qualified 10th for Hendrick.
Christopher Bell, in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, will start 12th and lock himself into the next playoff round once he takes the green flag. Suarez was 13th in a Chevrolet, reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney was 14th in a Ford, Alex Bowman was 17th in a Chevrolet and Denny Hamlin was 18th in a Toyota.
Briscoe at 25th was the lowest-qualifying playoff driver.
