NASCAR
What To Know About The Roval Ahead of Sunday’s Elimination Race
This weekend’s race at Charlotte Motor Speedway will make NASCAR history. This race will mark the first time Charlotte has run its “roval” configuration on the NASCAR circuit. This is also the first race run on any type of road course in NASCAR’s Playoffs. Before heading into this weekends race, there are a few things you should know about it.
There are very few notes! Before going into the races every week, teams usually have a game plan. That’s not the case this weekend. The only type of testing came earlier this summer in a tire test at the track. In that test many cars had issues and there was little to no passing attempts. So where can you pass? How hard can you run? When do you try? All of these questions won’t be answered until this weekend’s races.
Playoff Madness
The race course itself is 2.28 miles long with 17 turns. If the other reasons mentioned weren’t enough to make you nervous, how about adding the Playoffs to the equation? This week’s race will eliminate 4 drivers from a chance at the championship. As to which 4 will that be, who knows? It definitely won’t include Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex, Jr., or Brad Keselowski. Those 4 drivers are locked into the Round of 12. Everyone else is questionable because of the Roval’s unknowns.
Currently, Denny Hamlin and teammate Erik Jones have the biggest hole to dig out of, but another driver having trouble early could change their fate. Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson are the 2 others who are currently below the cutoff. TSJ101Sport’s NASCAR Writer, Peter Stratta was able to catch up with Clint earlier this summer.
“No this isn’t like anything I’ve ever been on before”, Clint said with a chuckle when asked. “It’s pretty sketchy really, it’s going to be very interesting to see how we race and how that all plays out.”
Whether drivers are aggressive or on defense, there’s no doubt this weekend’s race will be a crazy one.
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