What Happened?
Kyle Larson put on another Larson-style clinic and won at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in dominant fashion on Sunday, Oct. 13 after leading a track record-setting 62 laps. Christopher Bell, William Byron, Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five.
This is the sixth NASCAR Cup Series win for Larson in 2024, which matches the record for most wins in the Next Gen era set by his teammate Byron last year.
Among Cindric, Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe, Joey Logano was eliminated from the playoffs. It ended his streak of qualifying for the Championship 4 round in every even-numbered year since the inception of the playoff format in 2014.
For about three hours.
What Really Happened?
Every once in a while, NASCAR writers are reminded to wait until the official results of a race are released before writing. We still often ignore that rule anyway, because disqualifications are rare in NASCAR, and it’s implausible to think a day would come where playoff eliminations are reversed because of them.
No, this crow does not taste good.
In the early Sunday evening, hours after all of the fans had gotten up and left the racetrack and the drivers had all returned home, it was announced that Alex Bowman, who had qualified the No. 48 Chevrolet into the Round of 8 for the first time since 2017, had been disqualified for failing weight requirements in post-race inspection.
The disqualification resulted in Bowman’s immediate elimination from the playoffs and promoted Logano into the Round of 8 — keeping that weird even-year streak alive after all.
It nearly didn’t turn out that way, however. Despite everyone’s efforts and sorrows, the result was exactly how the afternoon began. Logano, Cindric, Suarez and Briscoe were all still below the cut line when the checkered flag dropped, leaving no surprises heading into the roster of this year’s Round of 8.
Logano’s streak seemed to be nothing more than a coincidence after all.
However, around three hours later, that streak was miraculously brought back to life for at least another three weeks with Bowman’s inspection failure.
What is the strange phenomenon that gives Logano the ability to perform as he does in even-numbered years? Is it luck? Is it skill? Is it aliens?
No matter the case, Logano’s survival into the Round of 8 this year reminds us to never count him out in an even year — even if the race is already over.
Who Stood Out?
While the rest of the Round of 8 field had a somewhat easy time making the next stage of the playoffs, the No. 45 of Reddick had anything but.
The 23XI Racing driver had started the day wonderfully. The Monster Energy Toyota stayed out in stage one and collected the stage win.
After pitting during the following caution, however, Reddick found himself mired in traffic and collided with his team owner Denny Hamlin, who was also contending to stay in the playoffs, early in stage two.
Along with likely horrifying most of the employees of 23XI, Reddick had inflicted damage on his Toyota that affected his handling for most of the day, forcing him to fight from below the cut line from then on.
After not scoring any points in stage two and still fighting an ill-handling racecar, the team found itself deep in the field and unable to make up much ground, putting it in danger of elimination from the playoffs
So on the final caution of the day on lap 82, the team pitted to give Reddick four new tires and put him back out in 24th. To make the playoff cut, he would have 26 laps to charge through the field to gain 14 points on Logano.
A tall order, but charge through the field he did.
With nine laps to go, Logano was overtaken by Reddick in the standings, and the regular season champion didn’t look back on his way to a Round of 8 berth, the second of his career. It became the story of the day.
Well, for a few hours that is.
With Bowman’s disqualification, it turned out later Reddick’s charge wasn’t necessary. However, that doesn’t make the effort any less impressive.
Who Fell Flat?
Shane van Gisbergen was the odds favorite with +130 going into Sunday’s event.
It wasn’t surprising as to why. The Kiwi road course ace had swept both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Cup Series poles for the weekend and was coming off of a near win at Watkins Glen International only a few weeks earlier.
For the first stage, things were going as planned as well. Van Gisbergen kept the lead form the pole and pulled away from the rest of the field multiple seconds ahead of second place. The Kaulig Racing driver pitted before the end of the stage, however, in an attempt to flip the stage and regain the lead at the beginning of stage two.
What he and the Kaulig team hadn’t factored in, however, was Larson, who had a faster pit cycle that gave him the top spot in stage two, as well as the chaos of the new turn 7.
The former Australian Supercars champion’s spin lost him many spots and put him out of sight of the lead. Like Reddick, the No. 13 team opted to pit during the final caution period and charge through the field.
While he gained a number of spots, van Gisbergen had to settle for a seventh-place result, not at all what many had expected from the man that made history by winning in his first career Cup start at the Chicago Street Race one year ago.
Better Than Last Time?
Only because of the new hairpin.
The talk of the town was the new hairpin turn added to the ROVAL circuit and the additional passing opportunities it would create.
Did it work?
Well, yes.
But at a cost.
It certainly didn’t make the race as chaotic as it has been in recent years, nor did it seem to make it any more competitive as it tied with last year’s ROVAL race for the least amount of lead changes in the event with seven.
That said, unlike in recent performances of the Next Gen, passing was still possible, and seeing the likes of Reddick, van Gisbergen and Allmendinger claw their way through the field in the final 26 laps was proof of that.
However, there wasn’t a chaotic nail-biting finish like we’ve seen before, nor was there a surprise non-playoff winner.
Instead, Sunday seemed pretty average, which isn’t at all average for the ROVAL.
Paint Scheme of the Race
Unlike last week, there weren’t many unique paint schemes on the track this Sunday.
However, there was at least one, and the folks at Front Row Motorsports seemed to have fun with it.
Fun, imaginative designs created by sponsors aren’t something we see very often nowadays, but with Todd Gilliland‘s new partner, Boozy Jerky, it seemed fitting, necessary even, to bring one along.
What’s more fun than putting a drunken bull on the hood?
What’s Next?
The Cup Series Round of 8 begins.
The remaining playoff drivers will be looking to punch their tickets into the Championship 4 next week in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 267-lap event will be presented live on NBC on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
did bowman’s car weigh legal before the race? i mean they used to mess with car weight years ago. but with how the penalties come down now, i’d think they wouldn’t mess with the weight of the cars. not like height settling due to shock compression after a race. just very odd. guess penske was the owner that paid the big check this time.
I’ve seen several comments on Facebook about how his car lost weight from damaged pieces falling off. I’m not sure how NASCAR accounts for that. I’ve also seen comments saying a tungsten weight came off. If that’s the case, then the penalty will stand as ballast weight is supposed to be securely fastened.
Either way, there’s lots of Monday morning crew chiefs out there. :)
Here a better explanation for the 48 team.
NASCAR has screwed up so many times to the benefit of Hendrick Motorsports that they are sacrificing the 48’s playoffs to appease the casual fan. I see through that big time.
Larson won the race and has 6 wins on season and we #2 regular season can’t touch him.
Byron locked in last week so can’t touch him.
Elliott well obvious since everyone sees the favoritism there.
Bowman yep last one left to screw over so they did to give an optic of not playing favorites.
Hey NASCAR wake up and apply your own rules consistently and constantly across all races and teams and perception mostly goes away.
4 car does not hit anything and basically no damage at Kansas parked after lap 1. termed use significant damage I believe.
9 car slams the wall and can’t move at Talladega get towed into the pits first and then a magical yellow flag period begins to work on car while others are still out on track. If it takes a power saw to allow the car to move then should have been parked based on rules applied the previous week.
Stop making up interpretations to suit the agenda. It’s part of why fans have left in droves the past 20 years.