Larson wins playoff race at Charlotte Roval; Round of 8 set

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Reid Spencer

CONCORD, N.C. – Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 featured a frequent winner, a couple of unlikely heroes and occasional villainy.

Kyle Larson took the checkered flag after 109 laps at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course to win for the seventh time this season and advance to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Larson won for the third time on a road course—the most ever in series history in a single season—in a race that featured the violent renewal of the Bristol-born rivalry between Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott.

RELATED: Race results

And Larson’s victory was no stress-free Sunday drive. Car chief Jesse Saunders and hauler driver Steven Legendre changed the battery and alternator belt on Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet under caution and kept him on the lead lap at the end of Stage 2, after the voltage dropped and put Larson in danger of elimination from the Playoff.

“It wasn’t looking too good,” Larson said of the electrical problems that beset his car. “Thankfully, everybody on our 5 car did a great job of staying calm. (Crew chief) Cliff (Daniels), as always, did a great job of communicating with me what was going on, getting the battery changed, the alternator—whatever was going on to get our battery running.

“I knew I was going to have some sketchy moments. I had to work my way through traffic, stay calm, and we had some good restarts there at the end … It was just a fun race there and a lot of craziness all day long.”

The victory was Larson’s first at the Charlotte Road Course and the 13th of his career.

Harvick failed to advance from the Round of 12 for the first time since the inception of the elimination format in 2014. His race ended in the SAFER barrier on Lap 99 after he locked up the left front tire on his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and shot straight into the wall.

“I just pushed it in there too hard and I got the tire locked up and I couldn’t stop it,” Harvick said. “I felt like I needed to go get a couple spots back that I had lost, and I got the left front locked up, and I couldn’t get it to turn.”

“Karma,” Elliott’s spotter, Eddie D’Hondt, said on the radio with understandable satisfaction, given that Harvick had spun Elliott into the wall in Turn 8 to jeopardize the reigning Cup champion’s chances of advancing to the next round.

But Elliott did advance after recovering to finish 12th, joining Larson, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. in the Round of 8.

Joining Harvick on the sidelines were Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman and William Byron, who led a race-high 30 laps but lost track position after a bump from race runner-up Tyler Reddick entering the backstretch chicane after a restart on Lap 90.

Byron missed the corner and had to come to a full stop before continuing. Later, he was running third before hitting the wall on the penultimate lap. Needing a victory to advance to the Round of 8, Byron instead finished 11th.

Harvick’s shot into Elliott’s back bumper on Lap 55 appeared to be retaliation for the Sept. 18 Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, where, in Harvick’s view, Elliott cost him a victory by taking his line in the late stages of the race—after Harvick had run Elliott into the outside wall and cut a tire on the No. 9 Chevrolet.

Asked whether his intent was payback for the Bristol race, Harvick said, “Sometimes real life teaches you good lessons.”

Chris Buescher finished third on Sunday — his first top five of the season. Kyle Busch was fourth, followed by Hamlin, Matt DiBenedetto, Logano, Bell, Blaney and Bowman.

The Round of 8 will begin next Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway with the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 (2 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It’ll then continue at Kansas Speedway (Oct. 24) and Martinsville Speedway (Oct. 31) before the Championship 4 is set for the 2021 finale at Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 7).

NOTES: The race-winning No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Kyle Larson passed NASCAR’s post-race inspection, thus confirming the victory. The No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Kyle Busch had two lug nuts not safe and secure, which will result in a fine of $20,000 and a one-race suspension of crew chief Ben Beshore. The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Denny Hamlin and the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford of Chris Buescher each had one lug nut not safe and secure.

Larson is the first driver since Kasey Kahne in 2006 to win both the Coca-Cola 600 in May and the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Kahne won both races on the 1.5-mile oval. The ROVAL became the venue for the fall race in 2018… Larson enters the Round of 8 as the No. 1 seed with 4,065 points, 35 more than second-place Hamlin… The victory was Hendrick Motorsports’ 36th at Charlotte Motor Speedway, including the oval and ROVAL events and the NASCAR All-Star Race… Team Penske is the last organization with all of its Playoff drivers still eligible for the championship—Keselowski, Logano and Blaney.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick’s playoff hopes came to an end with 11 laps remaining in Sunday’s Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

The No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford overshot Turn 1, locked up and crunched the barrier. The car ended up on the hook after Harvick exited under his own power.

“I just pushed it in there too hard and I got the tire locked up and I couldn’t stop it once I felt like I needed to go to get a couple spots back that I had lost, and I got the left-front locked up and I couldn’t get it to turn.”

Chase Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was behind Harvick before his mistake. The two had a brush-up earlier in the final stage, which left Elliott’s car with severe damage. “Karma,” said Elliott spotter Eddie D’Hondt over the No. 9 radio.

Harvick, still winless this season, entered the cutoff race nine points below the elimination line. He was 10th in the first stage and third in the second, giving him nine stage points. After wrecking out, Harvick checked in at ninth in the standings — the first driver out — finishing 25 points below the elimination line.

This will be the earliest Harvick has ever been eliminated from the NASCAR Playoffs since the current format was established in 2014. He has always made it to at least the Round of 8, including last season.

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Zack Albert

CONCORD, N.C. — The prevailing thought that the Chase Elliott-Kevin Harvick feud from Bristol Motor Speedway might have simmered or otherwise fizzled? Turns out those were underestimated, and their cars emerged with more damage Sunday from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval than they did at their previous Bristol clash — whether it was self-inflicted or meted out intentionally.

In the end, Elliott moved on in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet severely scarred from a run-in with his newest rival but with a hard-fought 12th-place finish in the Bank of America Roval 400. And though Elliott pledged to exact revenge later in the race over the No. 9 team communications, Harvick made that a moot retribution point by overcooking Turn 1 in the final stage, unceremoniously ending his day 11 laps short of the 109-lap distance and scuttling his postseason hopes.

Post-race, Elliott tried to keep his remarks to his own team’s performance but couldn’t resist the dig.

“Yeah, I mean, our team has a lot of fight. I’m just super proud of that,” Elliott said. “As far as Kevin goes, just want to wish them a merry offseason and a happy Christmas.”

Christmas in October. Elliott’s unseasonable salute came 76 days early, stemming from their Lap 55 confrontation — one that rekindled the flames from the postseason’s previous elimination race.

Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing nudged Elliott’s car into a slide as the two exited the infield portion of the oval-road course hybrid. Elliott crunched the outside retaining wall, damaging the back of the No. 9 Chevy and sending him into a slide on the oval’s banking.

After a check at the infield care center for his later crash, Harvick dodged when asked whether his bump of Elliott was intentional. He told NBC Sports, “Sometimes real life teaches you good lessons,” and offered to PRN Radio that, “You remember Bristol.”

Elliott remembered, too, with the team vowing revenge in their radio chatter. The payback for the payback never quite materialized. Instead, the No. 9 team buckled down and tried to stem the crash damage. Elliott’s chances for a third consecutive Roval triumph were hampered, but the patchwork did the trick for salvaging a playoff-saving result.

“Everybody did an amazing job. I think this is an optimum result for what we had today, probably overachieved by far what most teams would have done,” said Alan Gustafson, Elliott’s crew chief. “… It’s satisfying to overcome that, for sure. I think it’s, diamonds are made from pressure, right? So that’s going to help us.”

Said Elliott: “We could have easily given up or not fixed it to the proper standard and had something break or had a tire rub. Everybody just did a really good job today and I’m super proud of that coming off of a really fast car. I thought we had a shot to win. Obviously that didn’t happen. In the grand scheme moving on is the most important thing. Our season is still alive. I’m pumped.”

By day’s end, both cars were battered, with Elliott moving on to the postseason’s Round of 8 in an effort to defend his Cup Series title and Harvick continuing outside the playoff picture. As to whether their relationship would stay contentious, Rick Hendrick — Elliott’s team owner — said he hoped Sunday’s flare-up was the end of it.

“I think they’ve handled it well,” Hendrick said of the No. 9 team’s composure. “Of course, they were upset. Everybody was upset when that happened today. It looked like Chase could be done and out of the playoffs. I mean, it was a lot of heated feelings. He came back, was able to (advance). Harvick wrecked himself, I guess. I hope it’s over.

“We don’t want to race that way. We want to just race. That’s not our style. Just go out, if a guy is better than you, he wins. Just do your job. If you get beat, you get beat. It never feels good to push somebody out of the way. I mean, a little rubbing or something, that’s OK. But just to wreck somebody, that’s not good.”

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Staff Report

Which channels have NASCAR programming this week? We answer that and give the weekly NASCAR television listings here in the NASCAR TV schedule.

Note: All times are ET.

MORE: How to find NBCSN | Get the NBC Sports App | How to find FS1 | Get FOX Sports App

Monday, Oct. 11
6:30 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
7:30 p.m., Refuse to Lose: Jeff Gordon and the 1997 Daytona 500, FS1 (re-air)

Tuesday, Oct. 12
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1

Thursday, Oct. 14
1 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Part 1, FS2 (re-air)
2 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Part 2, FS2 (re-air)
3 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub: Legends Show, FS2 (re-air)
4 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Features: Part 1, FS2 (re-air)
5 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Features: Part 2, FS2 (re-air)
6 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Charlotte, FS2 (re-air)
2 p.m., IMSA Auto Racing Special Prototype Challenge: Virginia International Raceway, NBCSN/NBC Sports App
3 p.m., IMSA Auto Racing Pilot Challenge, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (tape delay)
5 p.m., ARCA Menards Series West NAPA AutoCare 150 presented by Berco Redwood, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (tape delay)
6 p.m., Dale Jr. Download, NBCSN/NBC Sports App
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1

Friday, Oct. 15
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1

Saturday, October 16
2:30 p.m., Countdown to Green, NBC/NBC Sports App
3 p.m, NASCAR Xfinity Series Andy’s Frozen Custard 335, NBC/NBC Sports App (Canada: TSN3)

On PRN
2:30 p.m, NASCAR Xfinity Series Andy’s Frozen Custard 335

Sunday, October 17
Noon, NASCAR RaceDay: Texas, FS1
1:30 p.m., Countdown to Green, NBC/NBC Sports App
2 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500, NBC/NBC Sports App (Canada: TSN)
6 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series Post-Race Show, NBCSN/NBC Sports App

On PRN
1 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Zack Albert

CONCORD, N.C. — The first organizational test for NASCAR’s Next Gen car in the 2022 Cup Series is scheduled Monday and Tuesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s road course.

A total of 21 teams are set to participate, with drivers shaking down the new model on the 2.32-mile Roval circuit. The seventh-generation design is set to debut in the non-points Clash at the Coliseum exhibition on Feb. 6, with a full-fledged premiere in the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 20.

The list of teams and drivers expected to participate in the two-day test:

Team	Driver(s)
No. 00 StarCom Racing Chevrolet	Kaz Grala
No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford	Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola
No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet	Kyle Larson
No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet	Corey LaJoie
No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet	Tyler Reddick
No. 12 Team Penske Ford	Ryan Blaney
No. 14 Stewart Haas Racing Ford	Chase Briscoe, Cole Custer
No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet	AJ Allmendinger, Justin Haley
No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford	Chris Buescher
No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota	Martin Truex Jr.
No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford	Austin Cindric
No. 22 Team Penske Ford	Joey Logano
No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota	Bubba Wallace
No. 27 Team Hezeberg Ford	Loren Hezemans, Jacques Villenueve
No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet	Ross Chastain
No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet	Erik Jones
No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet	Alex Bowman
No. 51 Petty Ware Racing Chevrolet	Joey Hand, Cody Ware
No. 94 GMS Racing Chevrolet	Ty Dillon
No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet	Daniel Suarez

The sessions will mark the debuts for two Cup Series efforts — Team Hezeberg, which will field the No. 27 Ford for NASCAR Whelen Euro Series drivers Loren Hezemans and Jacques Villeneuve ahead of their part-time venture in 2022, and the No. 94 GMS Racing Chevrolet for newly tapped driver Ty Dillon.

Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric, who is slated to drive the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske next year, will drive the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 in the two-day session. Cindric was originally slated to drive the No. 21 in the Cup Series next year before Brad Keselowski’s planned departure to Roush Fenway Racing in 2022 shook up the roster for Team Penske and its affiliates.

The sessions — which are scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET each day — provide an early opportunity for teams to get familiar with the Next Gen model, working on their own cars and learning their nuances. The vehicle’s development phase was largely made up of single-car tests, with eight teams taking part in the most recent test Sept. 7-8 — a NASCAR test at Daytona International Speedway to determine tire combinations and the proper aero and horsepower mix for the 2022 superspeedway rules package.

Three more organizational Next Gen tests are on the calendar before the 2022 season — Nov. 17-18 on the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway oval, Dec. 14-15 at Phoenix Raceway, and Jan. 11-12 back at Daytona.

Posted on October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 by Staff Report

Ty Dillon will drive full time for GMS Racing in its inaugural NASCAR Cup Series season in 2022, the organization announced Sunday.

In 2021, Dillon has competed in four Cup Series races with Gaunt Brothers Racing and 11 Xfinity Series races with Joe Gibbs Racing, Our Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing.

Dillon has competed in more than 160 Cup Series races in his career with his last full-time effort coming with Germain Racing in 2020.

“It’s such an honor to be able to drive for GMS Racing as they take the step into the NASCAR Cup Series for the first time, and that they have chosen me as their driver for the future,” Dillon said in a team release. “It’s been a challenging year off from racing full-time, but I’m so excited to return. I don’t think that there is going to be another driver that is more hungry than I am next year to get back out there and prove what I am capable of in the Cup Series. I am excited for our future and am ready to get to work.”

On June 17, GMS Racing announced it would field a full-time Cup Series effort next year. Since 2014, the organization has won more than 50 races across the Xfinity Series, Camping World Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series.

Dillon will drive the No. 94 Chevrolet for the team in an alliance with Richard Childress Racing and ECR Engines.

The number has significance with GMS Racing. Team president Mike Beam partnered with NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott in 1995 to form Bill Elliott Racing to field the No. 94 entry throughout the mid-1990s. The original Bill Elliott Racing shop is still a current part of the GMS Racing facility.

“We’re excited to welcome Ty to the GMS Racing family,” said Beam. “Going full-time Cup racing in 2022 is a big step for us and I can’t think of a better driver than Ty to lead us into our first year in NASCAR’s top series.”

Added team owner Maury Gallagher: “GMS is always looking forward and I believe this is the next step for the team in that process. We have the goal to be a championship-caliber team in any series in which we compete, and I am excited to watch the team grow in the coming years.”

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Zack Albert

CONCORD, N.C. — Rarely do so many dynamic factors figure into a 15th-place finish. That’s where Harrison Burton wound up on the scoring pylon after Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 presented by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, the first elimination point in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs.

But Burton’s just-above-midpack result included playoff pressure, a closely contested battle with family and a conservative approach that went against his racing instincts. In the end, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver celebrated his 21st birthday by advancing to the Round of 8, maintaining the necessary cushion by just eight points and staving off the playoff ouster that claimed his cousin, Jeb, and three others — Myatt Snider, Jeremy Clements and Riley Herbst.

“I know it’s boring, but just got to make it home,” Harrison Burton radioed his No. 20 JGR team as he tried to tiptoe through and avoid trouble with 10 laps left on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s tricky road course layout. Even after a late caution period forced a chaotic two-lap dash to the end, Burton stayed steady and kept his older cousin’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevy at least within sight as he finished two spots ahead.

“It’s family, and he wants it as much as I do,” Harrison Burton said. “You just have to take what you feel is yours. We were around each other all day, that was kind of by design on my part — just stay around Jeb and it worked out.”

The two cousins were in close proximity for much of the 68-lap showdown. Just Burton entered the day with the same nine-point gap that he finished with, his playoff chances hurt by a crash-related 36th place in the postseason opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weeks ago.

A seventh-place finish last weekend at Talladega helped his recovery, but the deficit was too much to surmount — and an over-aggressive counter-move was out of the question.

Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images

“I needed to outrun him all day by a couple spots, and we were right beside each other all day. The only way it was going to happen was if I just wrecked him. I got a little bit more respect for him than that,” Jeb Burton said. “He races me clean, and I race him clean. If it had been some other guys, maybe I woulda just dumped ’em, but I wasn’t going to do that to him. It is what it is, and he was the better car today and he outran us all day and I just beat him at the end by a couple spots. It just wasn’t enough.”

Jason Ratcliff, Harrison Burton’s crew chief, had a front seat for the friendly family face-off atop the No. 20 pit box, enjoying a bit of a laugh when asked to wrap his head around the cousin vs. cousin component of Saturday’s race.

“I haven’t heard much, but I’m sure those two were probably back and forth this week, having a little fun with it,” Ratcliff said. “It seems like all day, we were right beside each other, within one or two spots. So it was a little nerve-wracking at times, but both of them raced each other with a lot of respect and they pushed on each other a little bit but not to the point where it got ugly. Both teams and both drivers did a good job today. It was close.”

The crews for both Burtons preached patience at different intervals — Jeb Burton got that message early, with a Stage 2 scrape of the Turn 2 wall prompting some reassuring messages from his No. 10 team. Harrison Burton’s coaching came later as he tried to preserve his points margin, cognizant of the stakes.

Taking it easy at the Roval, it turns out, was less than easy.

“It is tough. As a driver, it’s so tough to be in a rhythm when you’re not full aggression, right? When you’re riding around trying to not crash or not make a mistake to get into the next round, it’s challenging to get in a rhythm. I wish we were just able to race, but we were in the situation we’re in, and that’s racing,” Jeb Burton said.

For the others eliminated, a mixed bag of results kept them from making the first cut. Snider was the top finisher among them, coming home eighth at the Roval, but not providing enough pop to offset a 31st-place wreck-out at Talladega. He wound up 16 points below the elimination line after the Round of 12.

Riley Herbst’s long-shot chance to advance ended with his No. 98 Ford heading behind the wall with rear-gearing trouble in the closing laps. Jeremy Clements actually leapfrogged Herbst in the points with a 12th-place finish — his best of the playoffs — but earlier setbacks at Vegas and Talladega left him too far back.

“We got in a big wreck at Vegas, broke a rocker arm at Talladega, and I mean, after that you’re just in a huge hole,” Clements said. “We knew we needed to come here to win, and that’s a tall feat for a small team, but proud of our effort today. We ran hard and raced hard.”

Posted on October 9, 2021October 9, 2021 by Staff Report

NASCAR will remove six sets of six yellow and black rumble strips from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval layout ahead of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Bank of America ROVAL 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

While the normal blue rumble strips around the track will remain, the six sets of striped rumble strips used to enforce track limits on the backstretch chicane will be taken out.

The rumble strips, which have been in place since 2018, were placed there to keep vehicles from traveling at excessive speeds across the entire chicane. NASCAR officials discussed their potential removal with Charlotte Motor Speedway representatives and some Cup Series drivers in reaction to Saturday’s Xfinity Series race after Josh Bilicki suffered a brake failure and blew through the caution-like rumble strips.

All sides came to the conclusion that track limits and enforcement can still take place in the absence of the extra rumble-strip placement while avoiding an incident similar to the one that occurred with Bilicki’s No. 07 car.

Posted on October 9, 2021October 9, 2021 by Reid Spencer

CONCORD, N.C. – AJ Allmendinger stayed undefeated at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.

The driver of the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet won his third straight race at the 2.32-mile, 17-turn Roval and achieved several milestones in the process.

With his overtime victory in the Drive for the Cure 250 presented by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, Allmendinger clinched a spot in the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. He won for the fifth time this season and the 10th time in his career.

Winning for the sixth time on a road course, Allmendinger broke a tie with race runner-up Austin Cindric for most-ever Xfinity road course victories.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

Allmendinger, who worked his way forward from the 14th starting position, took the lead for good on Lap 48 when Ty Gibbs suffered brake problems, blew the chicane on the backstretch and had to come to a full stop before continuing.

From that point, Allmendinger stretched his lead to 8.8 seconds before a caution for Tommy Joe Martins’ wreck on Lap 64 sent the race to overtime.

After the subsequent restart on Lap 67, Allmendinger pulled away again and beat Cindric to the finish line by 3.192 seconds.

Cindric, the defending series champion, already had clinched a spot in the Round of 8. Third-place finisher Daniel Hemric joined him, along with Justin Haley (fourth Saturday), Brandon Jones (fifth), Noah Gragson (sixth), Justin Allgaier (ninth) and Harrison Burton (15th).

Jeb Burton, Myatt Snider, Jeremy Clements and Riley Herbst were eliminated from the Playoffs.

“I knew it was coming out,” Allmendinger said of the final caution. “It wasn’t going to go simple like that. That was a fight today. We had to be kind of on defense early, worrying about the points. This place was tough to pass—the track was really slick to start with, obviously, because of all the rain.

“Once we got the lead, the (car) was stupid-fast.”

As the final run progressed, Cindric didn’t have the pace to keep up with Allmendinger.

“I feel like this has honestly been one of my weakest road courses for probably exactly what you saw—the rear tires fall off way too much,” Cindric said. “I felt like I was driving a skid-pad car after about 10 laps.

“I feel a little bit lucky and a bit fortunate, honestly. I didn’t get moved or put in the wall, so either way we had a fast car. I think we set a fast lap time and got a good finish, so that sets us up well for Texas. I just wish we could have taken advantage of getting a Playoff point.”

Instead, it was Hemric who added to his Playoff point total by winning the first two stages of the race. Allmendinger gained five additional Playoff points for the victory.

The race featured six lead changes among five drivers, with Allmendinger leading the final 21 circuits. There were seven cautions for 13 laps, the fourth of which also caused a brief stoppage when the brakes failed on the No. 07 Chevrolet of Josh Bilicki, with the car plowing through the backstretch chicane and dislodging pieces of curbing in its path.

Track workers had to remove the exposed bolts that had held the curbing in place before the race could continue.

The three-race Round of 8 begins Saturday, Oct. 18 with the Andy’s Frozen Custard 335 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Harrison Burton is the defending race winner.

Note: Post-race inspection confirmed Allmendinger as the race winner. The No. 11 of Haley was found to have one lug nut not safe and secure. A fine to the crew chief will be assessed early next week on the penalty report.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on October 9, 2021October 12, 2021 by Staff Report

A host of NASCAR drivers and teams are set to get their Next Gen feet wet next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval for an open organizational test of the 2022 livery Monday and Tuesday — and it will be live-streamed, with broadcasts on NASCAR’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

DAY 2: LIVE NOW

Here is the live streaming schedule:

Monday, Oct. 11

Live video and audio from cars on track
- Noon – 7 p.m. ET: WATCH/BOOKMARK

Tuesday, Oct. 12

- NASCAR Next Gen Roval Live Show co-hosted by Alex Weaver and Larry McReynolds with Alan Cavanna and Kim Coon reporting at-track
  - 10-10:45 a.m. ET: WATCH/BOOKMARK

- Live video and audio from cars on track
  - 9-10 a.m.; 10:45 a.m.-5 p.m. ET: WATCH/BOOKMARK

TUESDAY LIVE SHOW REPLAY

MONDAY TEST REPLAY