CONCORD, N.C. — For Hendrick Motorsports drivers, the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL is 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.
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.