Carson Hocevar made contact with Austin Cindric entering the frontstretch chicane at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, all but ending Cindric’s chances at advancing in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
On Lap 32, Hocevar entered Turn 16 with too much speed, spinning through the corner and contacting Cindric. Both drivers suffered damage and came down pit road for repairs. Cindric, the Team Penske driver, fell 22 laps down, ultimately ending his playoff hopes as he finished 36th.
It was the second incident that Hocevar had partial responsibility for, contacting Kyle Busch in Turn 1 of Lap 1 as the Richard Childress Racing driver hit the wall and fell several laps down.
“Just a shame that we got hit so perfectly, that KO’d all of my rear suspension,” Cindric said after the race. “You don’t want three races to define your season. It’s amazing how much everything ebbs and flows throughout the year. You feel like for a month, you can’t do anything wrong, and for three weeks that matter the most, you feel like you can’t do anything right. It’s just how the cookie crumbles and you gotta be on it, and we’ll learn.”
Before the Stage 2 mishap, Cindric had already suffered a pair of issues in the backstretch chicane. He blew the corner at Lap 9, serving his stop-and-go penalty on the racing surface before falling to 23rd position. Moments later, Cindric went for a spin in Turn 3 off the nose of Justin Haley, forcing him to pit road with scuffed tires.
“It’s such a long race here, like, in those moments, I didn’t feel like I was out of it,” Cindric said, reflecting back to before his tangle with Hocevar. “I just wanted to not put us in a situation where we’re completely out of it, just knowing the strategies were going to get super crazy with the super long run, having the [tire] falloff we had [Saturday], knowing how big the windows were.”
But in a sense, those moments were like a microcosm of Cindric’s entire Round of 12, finishing no better than 17th (New Hampshire) in three races. Though the contact from the Spire Motorsports driver essentially ended his championship hopes, the fourth-year driver from Mooresville, North Carolina, shouldered most of the blame.
“I mean, this round was definitely tough for us. I mean, never really feel like we even had the speed to get stage points in any of the races,” he said. “But I also feel like I take a lot of that with having a qualifying lap each week that probably would have put me in the top 10 and slipping up and not being able to execute. I feel like I displayed some of my car control more than I displayed speed this round, so I feel like that falls on me.”
Although eliminated, Cindric still has more to look forward to in the season’s final four races. After Las Vegas Motor Speedway next Sunday (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), it’s s trip to Talladega Superspeedway, a track that he won at in the spring.
And while the stats might not show it, earning just five top 10s so far, Cindric believes that it’s been his best Cup Series season to date.
“There’s a lot of races this year that we had speed and a lot of capability and execution to try and contend for race wins,” Cindric said, reflecting on the first 32 races. “There’s been so many races that we’ve run exceptionally well. You think about Indy and Iowa, even Richmond, places that feel like we had opportunities taken away from us in some respects, and that’s going to happen, but you want to consistently run well.
“I would agree that this has definitely been my best season to date – it doesn’t feel that way today, but I think it’s definitely something to build on.”
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CONCORD, N.C. — For a brief time Saturday, Tyler Reddick was able to hop in the No. 45 Toyota and hone in on leading his 23XI Racing group closer to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Those efforts proved fruitful as he earned pole position for Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
Outside the car, though, he and wife Alexa Reddick have been pinning all focus on their son Rookie, who at 4 months old remains in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, amid recent health concerns.
Alexa Reddick shared on Sept. 28 that doctors discovered Rookie was displaying signs of heart failure. Her latest update, shared to Instagram on Saturday night, provided additional news, posted some six hours after Tyler Reddick won the pole.
“Rookie has a tumor that’s ‘choking’ the renal vein & renal artery,” her post read, “telling the heart, ‘hey I’m not getting enough blood… pump harder,’ causing the enlarged heart. He will need the entire kidney removed as it is not believed to be functioning any longer. He will undergo open surgery to remove his right kidney. We’re just not sure when. Waiting is OK right now to give his heart a break while he’s on (blood pressure) medication. They expect his heart to fully recover because it was just an innocent bystander. We have answers but a journey ahead to bring our little Cookie home.”
The circumstances have weighed heavily on the family, putting full priority into ensuring Rookie’s recovery and well-being while Tyler also pursues a spot in the Round of 8. But anything related to Reddick’s day job has taken an obvious backseat to his son’s health crisis.
The Reddicks received more answers following last week’s race at Kansas Speedway.
“In some ways, I was fortunate when I came home (from Kansas),” Reddick said Saturday at Charlotte. “Basically, as I was rolling into the hospital, they were able to somewhat understand fully — to a much clearer picture — what exactly it was. They obviously knew what the issue was, so they found the cause. So I can’t imagine what that was like for my wife at the hospital. She’s there looking at our son, and they’re still trying to diagnose and understand what the issue is.
“Certainly something crazy you obviously never expect, but it’s a lot to go through for my wife, for my son, my other son as well, Beau. So it’s trying to manage it all.”
Indeed, Alexa Reddick has been there for every moment as she and Rookie navigate their circumstances together. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by her husband.
“Just really proud of her, honestly, throughout this whole process,” Tyler Reddick said. “She’s been — I hate to even use the word, but locked in, honestly, on everything that’s going on, whether that’s what they found today, what the plan is going forward, everything. She’s paying, obviously, very close attention and just giving very good feedback to the doctors on past history and everything. Yeah, difficult situation for both of us being but she’s been a great one.”
Reddick enters Sunday’s race 29 points beneath the cutline to advance into the next round of the playoffs, a virtual must-win situation that was aided by a strong qualifying effort Saturday that has him leading the field to the green flag for the Round of 12 finale. But when he’s not behind the wheel, Reddick is looking at what’s most important.
“I think you just try to be as present as you can,” he said, “whether that’s on the phone like I was in Kansas or in person like I was this week. Just be there as much as I can. Me and Alexa feel, right now, good enough for me to be here today.”
Editor’s note: Projection updated after Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions.
The ebbs and flows of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs are set for a crash course with arguably the biggest wild card yet. Sunday’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) trims the field of 12 remaining postseason contenders down to just eight as we begin the month-long countdown to Championship Weekend in Phoenix.
But before even thinking about a Championship 4 berth, a tall mountain stands in NASCAR’s backyard. The Roval’s 17-turn, 2.28-mile configuration completes a hexad of road-course races on the 2025 schedule with tight, technical corners that, in a sense, mimic tracks like Martinsville Speedway or New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It’s a unique beast compared to the other left- and right-hand events on the Cup calendar.
While the playoffs are at the forefront, the projected winner isn’t — although at this point, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Racing Insights predicts that Shane van Gisbergen will win Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400, notching both his fifth consecutive road-course victory and fifth of the campaign.
The Kiwi’s meteoric rise in the Cup Series is trending in a historic direction. Leading a whopping 52% of road-course laps so far, SVG sits third all-time on the road with an 8.18 average finish (only to Hall of Famers Fireball Roberts and Buck Baker) and would become the first driver to earn his first six wins at road courses with a trip to Victory Lane on Sunday. He could also become the second driver to win five straight on road courses, matching Jeff Gordon’s clip from 1997-2000.
According to NASCAR Insights, SVG leads four of the five categories on road courses this year: speed, long-run pace, passing and restarts. The only outlier? Defense, which in all fairness might not even apply to the 36-year-old as he owns a 16.567-second win in Mexico City and an 11.116-second triumph at Watkins Glen — the two largest margins of victory at road courses since 1988.
The only driver able to dethrone van Gisbergen this season is Christopher Bell, winner at Circuit of The Americas. His road-course numbers are quietly incredible: top-five finishes in five of the last six (including three runner-ups), a playoff-driver best 175 points scored in 2025 and an average finish of 10th at the Roval. Bell’s inside the top six in four of NASCAR Insights’ five road-course categories.
On the other side of the coin, SVG’s dominant season on the road has come at the expense of Hendrick Motorsports, an organization yet to win on lefts and rights this year after at least one win each season between 2018 and 2024. HMS leads all-time in nearly every major category on road courses: poles, wins, top fives, top 10s, laps led and average finish. But since Kyle Larson’s dominant win at the Roval last fall, the well has run dry.
Winless since before his Indianapolis 500-Coca-Cola 600 Double attempt, Larson owns victories in two of the last nine road-course events but has an average finish of 29th in the other seven. Mechanical issues derailed him early at both Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International this year, but both times, Larson returned to the track and earned the Xfinity Fastest Lap point, despite his NASCAR Insights Speed Rating being outside the top 10.
Like Larson, Chase Elliott is a two-time Roval winner but hasn’t won on a road course since his 2021 playoff triumph. His numbers are still solid, though; Elliott leads all drivers with 11 top fives in the Next Gen car, and his average finish since the start of 2022 is second-best at 9.27 — only to SVG. The 2020 series champion struggled at Watkins Glen, but third-place finishes at Sonoma and Chicago, along with momentum coming off a win last weekend at Kansas Speedway, prove he can contend on Sunday.
But big picture, Toyota continues to have the hot hand overall this postseason, leading 1,124 of 1,681 laps the last five races and placing their drivers inside the top 10 44% of the time. Ford dominated the field two weeks ago at Loudon, but it’s been since 2018 when the manufacturer last won at the Roval with Ryan Blaney.
As the calendar flips to October, intensity ramps up. Tempers flare. Championship aspirations become realizations. But first, with 10 drivers vying for six remaining Round of 8 spots, surviving 109 laps at the Roval could make or break a driver’s season.
TYLER REDDICK: The 2024 Regular Season Champion heads to the Roval in a pretty dire position, sitting 29 points below the cutline. Reddick averaged 40.3 points in each of the last three races there, best of the remaining playoff drivers, and totaled 166 in five road course races in 2025. With three career wins on left- and right-handers, it’s certainly possible the No. 45 driver reverses the skid and earns his first win of the season at the right time.
ROSS CHASTAIN: The first driver below the elimination line at 13 markers back, Chastain’s been solid on road courses … with the Roval as the exception. His average finish is 24th, his worst among active road courses. But he’s one of just eight drivers with over 100 laps led on this track type in the Next Gen car, and with his season hanging in the balance, expect the watermelon farmer to lean on Trackhouse Racing teammate SVG for a turnaround run at the Roval.
JOEY LOGANO: Not known as a road-course racer, the three-time series champion earned top 10s in six of the seven Roval races. He’s scored the second-most points at the track in the Next Gen car, and NASCAR Insights places him first on defense at road courses this season. His plus-13 gap over Chastain for a Round of 8 spot is more than manageable, based on his history.
BUBBA WALLACE: The Brickyard 400 winner has vastly improved at road courses as of late, and the Roval is arguably his best. Wallace averaged 33 points over the last races at the track and has a pair of top 10s in that span. At 26 points below the cutline, he’ll need a strong points day to advance, and that starts with qualifying; if he can stay toward the front, his fourth-best defense rating at road courses evidences that he can stay there.
AJ ALLMENDINGER: Always a threat at road courses, the Kaulig Racing driver earned the 2023 win at the Roval and has finished in the top six in his last three races at the track. All three of his Cup wins have come at road courses, and if a non-playoff driver other than SVG were to win, it could very well be the ‘Dinger.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR BANK OF AMERICA ROVAL 400:
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula incorporates current track, track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to predict a projected winner and provide full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A perfect October in the closing stages of the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season was something Austin Beers knew would be imperative to fend off Justin Bonsignore for his first series championship.
Riverhead Raceway’s Eddie Partridge 256 presented a major hurdle toward Beers’ goal. Bonsignore holds the all-time Modified Tour wins record at Riverhead with 12, while Beers only possessed three top fives at the quarter-mile bullring prior to Saturday evening.
Beers stood tall in the face of immense pressure, denying Bonsignore a 13th series victory at Riverhead while securing his first checkered flag at the Long Island bullring. Being able to outlast Bonsignore at one of his best tracks and consolidate his points lead was a much-needed relief for Beers following a disappointing showing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
“We struggled really bad at New Hampshire, and I lost a lot of confidence in myself,” Beers said. “This team just had a bad ass race car. We kind of struggled in practice there, but they did a hell of a job working on it. We were able to get the car to rotate in the center really good there throughout that last long run and were able to pick off Justin [Bonsignore].”
Beers’ 2025 season reflects that of many past Modified Tour champions. Not only has Beers completed every possible lap, but he also does not have any finishes outside the top 10.
Despite the consistency displayed by Beers all year, Bonsignore has remained within striking distance. The four-time Modified Tour champion entered the Eddie Partridge 256 just seven points back from Beers in the standings with momentum on his side following a second place run at New Hampshire.
Bonsignore possesses a combined 27 victories between the final three tracks on the schedule in Riverhead, Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park and Martinsville Speedway. There would be no margin of error for Beers, who got a head start over Bonsignore on Saturday by lining up second on the grid following the redraw.
Although he battled an ill-handling car all evening, Bonsignore took advantage of several cautions to cycle his way toward the front but found himself vulnerable to Beers in the closing stages. With Bonsignore keeping his car glued to the bottom, Beers utilized his fresher tires to overtake Bonsignore.
🫣 Is this the changing of the guards?
Austin Beers overtakes Justin Bonsignore for the lead at @RiverheadRacewy! 😱
Not even a late caution was enough for Bonsignore, who ultimately surrendered second to Ron Silk. Bonsignore knew creativity with strategy would be required to usurp Beers, but he now heads into the final two races knowing he has a slightly larger points deficit to overcome.
“You always want to win, especially at home,” Bonsignore said. “Congrats to Austin; they executed really well and probably had the best car throughout the entire race. It’s so hard to know what the right strategy is going to be, and we short-cutted because we weren’t too good and got the track position, but it just didn’t play out at the end.”
Beers’ victory at Riverhead gives him an advantage over Bonsignore in another regard: multiple wins on the season. He joins Silk, Patrick Emerling and Craig Lutz as the Modified Tour competitors with more than one trip to Victory Lane so far, with Bonsignore’s only triumph occurring earlier this year at Riverhead.
Victories are only one part of the championship formula for Beers. With Bonsignore following him closely in nearly every measurable statistic, Beers knows his team has to stay vigilant while trying to stay ahead of the seasoned Modified veteran at Thompson and Martinsville.
If Beers manages to keep Bonsignore behind him in the standings, he will surpass Ryan Preece as the youngest Modified Tour champion. Now that one major hurdle is cleared, Beers is ready to face Bonsignore head-on for a grueling title fight that could come down to the last lap.
“This is big,” Beers said. “[Riverhead] is a track where we’ve kind of struggled, but we’ve had good runs here and bad runs here. This gives us confidence going into Thompson and pad the points lead a little bit there. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve been consistent all year, and this win is going to help us.”
Completing the top five in the Eddie Partridge 256 were Lutz and Kyle Bonsignore. Eric Goodale, Stephen Kopcik, Trevor Catalano, Matthew Brode and Tommy Catalano rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Two races remain on the 2025 Modified Tour schedule. The penultimate race of the season takes place at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park next Sunday for the World Series 150, which will be broadcasted live on FloRacing.
CONCORD, N.C. — With a third-place finish and a blessing in disguise, Sammy Smith advanced to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs by one point over Taylor Gray following Saturday’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
A deteriorating right-front tire brought Smith to pit road with just three laps remaining in regulation. As Smith was receiving service on pit road, the yellow flag waved for a Sage Karam crash on the frontstretch. That caution allowed Smith to rejoin the field and stay out when others pitted, taking the green flag eighth in overtime and charging to a third-place finish when the caution flag waved again for debris on the final lap.
After a brief delay to sort the standings, Smith was confirmed to have beaten Gray by a singular point, propelling all four JR Motorsports cars into the semifinal round of the postseason and ousting the driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
“Probably gonna go home and cry myself to sleep,” Gray said with a slight laugh. “It is what it is.”
Ultimately, Smith joins Connor Zilisch, Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer, Jesse Love, Carson Kvapil and Sheldon Creed in the Round of 8. Eliminated from title contention with Gray were Nick Sanchez (minus-9), Austin Hill (minus-21) and Harrison Burton (minus-41).
The right-front tire on the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was blistering as Smith ran ninth, but the call from crew chief Phillip Bell to pit wasn’t totally out of left field. Running six points beneath the cutline, Smith said Bell had planned for an all-or-nothing call if the situation necessitated it. On Saturday, it all came to fruition to push the No. 8 Chevy through.
“It was a long shot coming into the day,” Smith said of entering 14 points below the cutline. “We got lucky with that Hail Mary move Phillip called. Amazing call by him to do that. And just relieved because I felt like we are a Championship 4 caliber team, and unfortunately, what happened at Bristol took us out of it. So, yeah, we’re just gonna regroup and just try to do everything we can to go make the final four.”
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media
Officials reviewed the last-lap footage for roughly 15 minutes to confirm the results, with the field frozen at the time of caution after a Turn 7 crash between Brennan Poole and Alex Labbe left fluid at the exit of the hairpin. The wait was excruciating, but for Smith, worth every second amid a whirlwind of ups and downs.
“It was from 10 to go thinking we’re not really going to make it in because we didn’t really have the speed to drive up,” Smith said, “and it didn’t look like (Gray) was going to lose enough positions. And, yeah, Phil made a great call to pit, and then obviously I had to make a lot of aggressive moves there. And luckily, we were able to make it in. So, yeah, just relieved and ready to move on to the next round.”
On the other hand, the wait was a gut-punch to Gray that was met with heartbreak after falling short with a 13th-place finish. The difference? Just two positions.
“It sucks, right?” Gray said. “I mean, we weren’t good enough today. We just we weren’t a playoff-caliber car and so we got knocked out.”
Gray’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, granted his rookie driver grace despite falling short of the Round of 8.
“The pressure of the playoffs, everyone says, well, it’s not much. It’s a lot,” Ratcliff said, “especially for a guy in his first season in the series and going to a lot of tracks he’s never seen like this one. We knew this one would be tough. …
“I don’t know what he could have done any different, as far as being a rookie in the sport, in the playoffs in a tight points battle like that, at a difficult track like this. I thought he did really a fabulous job. He showed a lot of poise, and, yeah, it’s disappointing he didn’t make it to the next round, but it’ll it’ll be beneficial for him going forward.”
Hill failed to advance to the Round of 8 by 21 points, the same amount of playoff points Hill earned through the regular season until he was suspended for an incident at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that wiped those 21 playoff points off his slate. Hindered by a sickened engine in the latter stages of Saturday’s race, the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing driver didn’t attribute his postseason ousting to that regular-season penalty.
“I don’t really look at the points thing that happened with us losing the points,” Hill said. “Yeah, obviously that played a factor tonight, but I just viewed it as we didn’t have any points going in the to the playoffs. That was something that I didn’t agree with, but it happened, right? So I put that behind me. And Bristol just was not good. We ran outside the top 15 all day. That got us really behind. Had a really good Kansas, but just wasn’t good enough.”
The Round of 8 will begin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 11 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Track: Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval Location: Concord, North Carolina Track length: 2.28 miles When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App Race purse: $9,797,935 Race distance: 109 laps | 248.52 miles Stages: 25 | 50 | 109 Defending winner: Kyle Larson, October 2024 Paint Scheme Preview: See fresh designs for Roval
Starting lineup: Tyler Reddick rockets to Busch Light Pole
Roval’s Round of 12 finale puts rivals to the test in title chase
CONCORD, N.C. — The Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval’s unique, 2.28-mile layout has always lent itself to playoff drama as the final race of the Round of 12.
The theatrics will reach a fever pitch Sunday through the combination of the track’s oval banking, its infield road course and the electric postseason implications on the line before setting the Round of 8 contenders.
Locked into the penultimate segment of the playoffs are Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott by virtue of their respective wins at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway. Beneath the cutline before Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 are Ross Chastain (minus-13), Bubba Wallace (minus-26), Tyler Reddick (minus-29) and Austin Cindric (minus-48). At least three of those drivers will be chasing victory as their one assured path out of the Round of 12. But to do so, they will need to beat Shane van Gisbergen, who has won each of the last four road-course races in the NASCAR Cup Series.
“Obviously there’ll be a lot of guys with yellow spoilers trying to get great results and trying to advance themselves on,” van Gisbergen said Saturday. “So be mindful of them, but yeah, just have to do my own thing and respect their race, but trying to get the best result I can for us, too, and being up front is the best place to be out of trouble.”
Elliott’s fate was settled last week in a thrilling finish in overtime at Kansas that propelled him to the win and into the Round of 8. But one week of assured guarantees doesn’t equate to the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team backing off the gas pedal.
“I don’t know that the situation really changes that,” Elliott said. “We still try to show up each week and be really prepared. And I thought we had a good week of prep this week and went about our business like we would have done if we hadn’t won last week. I think that’s an important thing to keep that cadence and keep your process the same because it’s not like the season’s over; we’ve still got another month.
“I think our team is in a good place. We just keep going about our business and keep our heads down and we certainly know we have room to improve, even with last week. So we’ll look to try and do some of that this week, and then certainly try and find some more next week in Vegas.”
Beneath the cutline is where the drama lies. Reddick rushed to the pole position in qualifying, a critical boon in what he and the No. 45 23XI Racing team view as a must-win race.
“Just got to lean on my experience here (and) the work that we put in over the year to find some more speed on the road courses,” Reddick said ahead of his pole run. “This has been one of our stronger tracks over the years as well. So we’ve just got to lean on the work that we’ve been putting in over the year, and the work that I’ve put in as well and see where it takes us.”
Chastain has a chance to point his way into the Round of 8 instead of solely relying on a win. But extreme lap-time fall-off in practice with an inaugural Roval appearance for these Goodyear tires will factor into how the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing team attacks Sunday’s finale: Do they chase the points or pursue the victory?
“Starting 10th, we’ll have a decision to make at the end of Stage 1,” Chastain said. “With the tire fall-off we just saw, it’s going to be evolving quickly. So it’s up to Trackhouse and (crew chief) Phil Surgen.
“I’m asking for a lot of changes. I don’t think we can do (them). You can’t do that kind of stuff in today’s world. When you’re slowing down that much (and) the pace is slowing, we would change things. I don’t know what they would even change if they could, but I know we’re not allowed, so we’ll make do with what we can.”
At the bottom of the playoff standings sits Cindric, who made no bones about the position his No. 2 Team Penske group enters in.
“We have to win to advance to the next round of the playoffs,” Cindric said. “And (we’re) coming off a good race here last year. Knowing that the tire was different and the same tire as what we’ve run all the other road courses at, I feel like we’ve taken a step back at those events. So kind of trying to apply what we have from our notebook. And honestly, regardless of what happens tomorrow, just super proud of everyone’s effort this week. A lot’s gone into it — not that we don’t put the maximum, but I’ve watched a lot of people go outside of their comfort zones to make sure this week is going to be as good a chance as possible to have a shot at the win.”
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
The Goodyear tire compound used for this weekend’s event at the Charlotte Roval is the same as has been used at all road courses in 2025. But the lap-time fall off seen through Saturday’s practice session was more drastic than teams expected.
Last year’s pole-earning lap time was 82.704 seconds for Shane van Gisbergen. Reddick’s quick time Saturday was 85.939 seconds, a full 3.2 seconds slower on the same course configuration.
“We expected it to be slow. We were slower than expected and the fall-off’s quite a bit more,” Rudy Fugle, crew chief of William Byron’s No. 24 car, told NASCAR.com Saturday. “It’s super hard to predict what it’ll do (Sunday). It’s been higher fall-off by quite a bit in all practices with this tire, and then it flattens out. So we’ll see. But yeah, it’s definitely a handful out there. Not much grip.”
Starting 13th, Byron and the No. 24 crew are in a solid position to advance into the Round of 8, sitting sixth at 40 points above the cutline. But the potential for a new winner from beneath the cutline would suddenly put the focus around Byron, Chase Briscoe (plus-21) and Joey Logano (plus-13). Road courses typically provide teams with two main options: Pit before the stage end to forfeit stage points and prioritize track position, or stay on track and collect stage points and claw back through traffic on the ensuing restart.
“I think it’s a little bit reckless to not chase a little bit of points,” Fugle said. “We’re really racing the 22 (Logano) and the 19 (Briscoe) for that eighth-place position. So that’s what we’re gonna be watching the most because obviously Reddick’s good enough to win and knock somebody out, and there’s other cars, too. So we’ll watch that and look for points.”
On the flip side of the cutline sits the No. 23 Toyota from 23XI Racing. Driver Bubba Wallace was less than half a lap away from locking himself into the Round of 8 with a victory at Kansas before contact with boss Denny Hamlin left him in the wall and fifth in the running order. Wallace enters the Roval 10th in points, 26 points out. Crew chief Charles Denike has hopes of winning in mind to get the No. 23 team into the semifinal round of the postseason for the first time.
“For us, we’re in a need-to-win situation, and that’s how we’ll tackle the race tomorrow,” Denike told NASCAR.com before Saturday practice. “Today, first off, is make sure that our car is driving well and our balance is where we need to (be), and our success tomorrow starts with qualifying really well. Bubba is very capable here, so we’ll set our sights on qualifying really well so that we can race for the win.”
A solid 12th-place qualifying effort marks Wallace’s third straight starting spot inside the top 15 at the Charlotte Roval. If Wallace is able to charge into the top five, that opens up more opportunities for Denike on pit road.
“Unique to this track is that if you’re running in the top few — top three or so — and it runs green, you can actually flip (the stage) and still get eighth, ninth or 10th-place stage points or so,” Denike explained. “It’s a little different just with the field spread and the time loss on pit road than a normal road course.”
But to win, they must beat an extremely competitive field — one that includes SVG.
“We just view him as the elite competitor that he is, but nothing’s guaranteed for anybody,” Denike said. “We build really fast cars, and Bubba does a really good job on these things. So if we’re not able to be leading, we at least will be doing everything we can to stay in touch with whoever that leader is, whether it’s the 88 or somebody else, because you never know what might happen. And to be able to win, first and foremost, you’ve got to keep yourself in contention all the way to the end.”
If you need to win to advance … good luck. In seven years of Roval racing, only once has someone in a must-win situation won to advance to the next round: Christopher Bell in 2022.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
TY GIBBS. Few drivers have been able to give SVG a run for his money this year. One of those few, though, was Gibbs at Mexico City back in June. That track also produced the most tire fall-off seen this season on a road course. Conditions may play into the No. 54 Toyota driver this weekend at the Roval, where Gibbs finished fourth in 2023. | See Gibbs’ projected finishing position
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Significant tire fall-off in a playoff elimination race sounds familiar, right? Over a 15-lap run in practice, speeds dropped nearly five seconds, unless your name is SVG. Knowing many playoff drivers are likely chasing stage points while the bulk of the field flips the stages throws a wrench into building a lineup. But the road-course aces seem to find a way, which is what I’m banking on. The lone changes are adding William Byron, who ranked as among the best cars in the field, and Chase Briscoe, who was the third-fastest playoff driver in qualifying. Gone are Chase Elliott and Joey Logano, despite this being the No. 22 car’s best road course as of late.
Lineup: Shane van Gisbergen, Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, AJ Allmendinger, William Byron.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
•NASCAR at the Roval: Key info, qualifying reports and more from tripleheader weekend | Read more • Racing Insights: Van Gisbergen projected to win again at the Roval | Read more
• Bubble Watch: Will anyone hit a Roval walk-off? | Read more • At-track photos: Trackside sights, scenes from Charlotte Motor Speedway | View gallery
• Memorable moments: History of walk-off winners in the playoffs | Read more • Turning Point to Charlotte: Final exams are here to test title contenders | Read more • Neil Paine: Who needs to win — and who can beat SVG to do it? | Read more
• Playoff Pulse: Who’s hot, who’s not ahead of the Roval | Read more
• Power Rankings: Sizing up where playoff drivers stand | This week’s ranks
CONCORD, N.C. — It was another routine victory for NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie phenom Connor Zilisch, who hit double digits with his 10th win of the season.
Behind Zilisch, it was a chaotic scramble for the remaining five berths in the Round of 8 of the series playoffs.
It was a banner day for JR Motorsports, which needed an unlikely stroke of good fortune to get all four of its drivers into the Round of 8 — and got it.
It was a study in heartbreak for hard-luck Taylor Gray, who lost his bid to advance to the next playoff round by one point.
For the record, after leading practice and winning his eighth pole position of the season, Zilisch led 61 of 68 laps and collected the victory when NASCAR called the sixth caution for oil on the track after Zilisch had taken the white flag.
The win was the 10th of the season for the 19-year-old driver of the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, his first on the 2.28-mile circuit and the 11th of his career.
“It’s so much fun getting to race in my hometown,” Zilisch said. “The JR Motorsports cars were so fast this weekend … It feels really good to get 10. Double digits is pretty awesome for my first year in the series.
“Now we’ve got to go win the championship.”
By the time Zilisch took the checkered flag under yellow, Harrison Burton, Nick Sanchez and Austin Hill had, for practical purposes, lost their respective chances to advance in the playoffs thanks to self-inflicted wounds.
But the battle for the final berth in the Round of 8 hung in the balance until the moment of caution on Lap 68. That Smith was even in the running for the final berth was the product of a series of remarkable circumstances that began when he brought his No. 8 JRM Chevrolet to pit road with a cut tire on Lap 63.
Almost immediately thereafter, Sage Karam wrecked on the frontstretch to cause the fifth caution, erasing Zilisch’s 10.987-second lead and giving Smith the chance to exit pit road with fresh tires.
Zilisch stayed out under caution, but a sizable number of drivers pitted behind him — enough to put Smith in seventh, one spot behind Gray, for the overtime restart at Lap 67.
Smith made immediate progress from the drop of the green flag and climbed to third at the finish, but Gray, tangled up in traffic, dropped to 13th in overtime, just enough to hand Smith the chance to advance by one point after a lengthy review by the sanctioning body.
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“I’m proud of everyone at JRM and everyone on my team,” Smith said. “(Crew chief) Phillip Bell made a great call to pit, obviously. It was a Hail Mary move, and it worked.
“I’m just excited to go try to race for a championship and put ourselves in position to make the final four.”
Gray was in position to advance but for the caution called for Karam’s accident.
“Just obviously bummed out,” Gray said. “We don’t get to go racing for a championship at the end of the year. Just weren’t good enough. We weren’t good enough today.
“We didn’t have a good Bristol, and we shouldn’t have to even be in this spot. We are, though, and we are going to take our loss and move on to the next four and try to win us a couple of races.”
The drama of the playoffs all but obscured a career-best runner-up finish by Austin Green, who stayed out with Zilisch for the overtime restart. Non-playoff drivers Kaz Grala, Connor Mosack, Jeb Burton and William Sawalich secured positions four through seven.
Defending series champion Justin Allgaier was eighth, with Sanchez finishing ninth.
Two pit-road penalties had already dimmed Sanchez’s hopes of advancing. Burton lost six laps in the garage with fuel pressure issues. Hill was competitive for the final Round of 8 berth until Lap 50, when he reported engine issues (a dropped cylinder) that relegated him to 28th at the finish, 21 points short of a trip to the next round.
Carson Kvapil joined Zilisch, Allgaier and Smith as JR Motorsports entries in the Round of 8 — but not by much. Kvapil survived the chaos of the final restart to finish 15th and advance by three points over Gray.
Sheldon Creed (11th), Jesse Love (12th) and Sam Mayer (19th) all made the Round of 8 on points. Zilisch, Allgaier and Brandon Jones had all already clinched their spots, the former two by points and Jones by virtue of a Kansas win last weekend.
The Xfinity Series Round of 8 begins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE: Inspection was completed in the Xfinity Series garage with no issues, confirming Zilisch as the winner. No cars are going back to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina for further inspection.
