Back in 2018, it was the shiny new toy on the NASCAR schedule.
The ROVAL, the road course inside of Charlotte Motor Speedway, took on the second date that the track hosts, right in the heart of the NASCAR playoffs.
With the one-mile-and-a-half package starting to draw the ire of fans around the “Big 3” era, it made sense to pivot. After the exhilarating finish between Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race on it, one could be forgiven to sharpie in this road course for the foreseeable future.
Throughout its Gen 6 tenure, the ROVAL has put on great moments. From Ty Dillon turning into a rocket ship, to Chase Elliott going from wrecked to victory lane, the ROVAL had proven time and time again that it has character.
Unfortunately, with the weaknesses of the Next Gen car, the ROVAL’s character has dissipated and no longer fuels the same need it once did. Road course racing has taken a significant step back in the almost four seasons that the new car has been present for, notably losing the ability to set up and execute passes consistently in traffic.
On the other hand, the once-maligned oval package has made a thunderous resurgence with great moments and finishes at Kansas Speedway, the Charlotte oval in the Coca-Cola 600 and Homestead-Miami Speedway.
So why all the silence? The solution seems rather obvious. The longer the status quo goes on, the more this turns into NASCAR shooting itself in the foot. With all of the discussion of oval versus road course balance on the schedule still in a social media firestorm, the near future is the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot and go back to two dates at the oval.
NASCAR at its home base, with its drivers at their peak, during playoff time in conditions that are ripe for some of the best racing of the year? Sign me up for all of that. The best part about it all? You don’t need to give up the idea that a road course should be in the playoffs. Watkins Glen International has already played that role in recent memory, so if you’re Trackhouse Racing and Shane van Gisbergen, you’d advocate for that to happen again. Dare I mention the possibility of going to Sonoma Raceway in the playoffs with West Coast tracks in Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway on the itinerary?
This isn’t about SVG and his dominance, as that honestly is something that should be appreciated given its historic nature. Having won five road course races in a row, he sits only behind Jeff Gordon, who at one point won six straight.
More than anything, these solutions provide options. Lead NASCAR scheduler Ben Kennedy has proven adaptable when it comes to deciding when to pivot to something new, whether it be the reclamation project surrounding Bowman Gray Stadium or addition of Mexico City on the schedule. It would be staunch situational awareness to get back on to the Charlotte oval, because at the end of the day, you aren’t admitting defeat. It’s simply a matter of knowing what is your best product, marketing said product and presenting it in a way that will have people ready to tune during the NASCAR playoff season. The ROVAL has already been announced to return next year, so there will be more time to stir, but I believe the proof is in the pudding.
TV ratings have been lower across the board for the Charlotte ROVAL playoff race, only earning a measly 1.54-million viewers on the USA Network this past weekend. For reference, the first race on it earned 3.22-million viewers, but to be fair, it was on network NBC. However, each succeeding race until this past weekend was also on NBC, and it faced year-over-year drops that bottomed out at 2.28 million viewers in 2023 before rebounding to a 2.41 million view count last season.
It is important to present some of the potential drawbacks if the series were to bring back the fall oval race. I mentioned earlier that some of the best memories on the road course involved the back and forth between dry and wet conditions in the rain. Well not to sound like captain obvious, but especially after the 2022 Coke Zero Sugar 400, there won’t be any racing on a large oval under wet conditions.
One of the other conundrums would be the attendance and local appetite. I have little doubt that the online fandom would be satiated with this move, but will the fans show up in numbers to justify the change? It’s hard to say.
We’ve seen numerous tracks that had two dates downscale, and it was part of the reason to reset into the ROVAL in the first place. Think Dover Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway and Pocono Raceway. Sometimes attendance is the hardest part, especially when your sister race is the Coke 600.
You don’t want the fans’ first question to be, “Crown jewel or playoffs?” In a perfect world, you get people to buy in for both events, but that isn’t necessarily realistic. And it’s something that both the series and Speedway Motorsports would need to brace for. Additionally, it adds a layer to the playoff question. How does everyone want the racing to be viewed? You may not get the Ross Chastain, go-for-broke moment, but that’s certainly not a bad omen.
Can they wrestle with the idea of the optics potentially looking better but the attendance looking similar? I think the opportunity cost of transforming the race weekend is worth it.
For my money, they’ll be making the right bet if the fall Charlotte date goes back to the oval. For as much as the word “tradition” is thrown around and has been referenced in recent months, this is an event that people grew up with, enjoyed and became attached to. We’ve seen Jeff Gordon’s legendary qualifying run under the lights, Brad Keselowski‘s run-ins coming to a head in the garage and the cream rise to the top in the middle of a championship hunt.
Now, it’s time for NASCAR to turn back the clock and make the right decision when it comes to racing in the series backyard starting in 2027.
Thomas is in his second year covering NASCAR at Frontstretch. A Bay Area NASCAR fan for over 15+ years, he found his love for the sport through Jeff Gordon. He helps manage the 2-Headed Monster Column.
Thomas has enjoyed several trips to Sonoma Raceway in his time and currently covers college athletics in the Bay Area, writing about the California Golden Bears and doing play by play broadcasting.
Why did NBC take the event off the main network? Maybe they realized they could get a bigger audience televising the Tiddly Winks competition for 10 year olds?
NASCAR needs to work with the NFL to make sure the Panthers are having an away game when NASCAR is in town. :)
I like the ROVAL, its something different. If we change it back, can we make Texas into a ROVAL?
Why would the NFL care about NA$CAR? Maybe the WWE will move some of their dates as homage to Brian?
Though I prefer the roval to the oval track, the argument here is compelling.
If more people tend to tune in for Charlotte oval races than do the roval, it makes perfect sense to change back to the traditional format. I don’t pay much attention to attendance…TV contracts power NASCAR, not ticket sales. And it’s not as though Charlotte’s owner (SMI) is going to walk away from NASCAR. The fight is always to host an event, not to get away from hosting.
If we’re going to switch to a different venue for a playoff road course, let’s have some fun. Put it at Laguna Seca. Let’s see these drivers traverse the corkscrew.
People claim the track is too narrow, but I don’t buy it. If Ferrari Challenge can run there, Cup cars are not too wide. The difference in car dimensions is trivial. ALMS has run there in the past as well, and their prototypes are huge.
Also, narrow tracks tend to produce close quarters racing. This can be a problem for Indycar, where moving a blocking car is nearly impossible without damaging both cars, but for NASCAR, this would likely lead to a combination of short track style and road course style racing, which seems like it would be a lot of fun.
Laguna Seca would have to have some safety/hospitality upgrades, but to see NASCAR run such a legendary track would be a blast.
Laguna Seca is a terrific track, but if it were adapted to NASCAR, it would probably race like Sonoma, which is already on the schedule.
The Roval was a good idea during the Gen 6 era, but doesn’t seem as special during these spec car days. However, SVG did demonstrate again that his skill driving the spec car on road-style courses is elite, so there’s that.
Would returning back to the Charlotte oval for the playoff race slot be better from a racing quality standpoint? Yes. But would it move the TV ratings’ needle back up again and draw more fans in the seats? That’s tough to say.
The NASCAR ‘Playoffs’ are getting smushed in the TV ratings by the NFL. Since sports gambling was legalized several years ago, even the most casual fans of the NFL are now obsessed at participating in fantasy leagues and betting on the games. NASCAR just isn’t big enough to attract that casual fan base like they were earlier in the decade when media savvy drivers like Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon were still competing.
Today, NASCAR has drivers who are excellent technicians behind the wheel, but none of them (including Chase Elliott, the so-called ‘Most Popular Driver, and Denny Hamlin, who waited too late in his career to start being media savvy) are very good at promoting the sport outside its boundaries.
Good points, all around.
I’ve somewhat run counter to the rush to the NFL. I once watched religiously, but now, I just can’t get into it (or CFB) as much as I once did. That said, I realize my experience has nothing to do with others, and what they opt to enjoy.
The increased understanding of CTE has taken the fun out of football for me. I always viewed it as those players made a good to great living out of playing, depending upon how their career went, and for most, having some aches and pains the rest of their lives was more than counterbalanced by the financial windfall. As a kid, seeing someone get up walking sideways, looking out of their ear hole, was funny. With new understanding of the long term damage likely happening there, it’s saddening when it happens.
Now, seeing complete personality changes, often including tragic outcomes, I just can’t enjoy it as I once did. I managed a fantasy league for over 20 years, but shuttered it a year or so ago. I understand CTE can happen in most any sport (see Dale Jr., who luckily seems to have stepped away in time to avoid dramatic fallout). But in football, it’s clear this affects a much higher percentage of players.
Back to NASCAR, while I agree there is a vacuum of strong personalities amongst the current drivers, I still suspect there would be more exciting rivalries resulting in showing personality but for the playoffs actively disincentivizing this, as another article currently up on Frontstretch notes. Pick a fight with another driver, and you can expect to be dumped when you are in a compromised position in the playoffs.
Such different perspectives. I looked at the sparse crowd at the Roval, and thought, “Guess the ‘high drama’ of an elimination race isn’t the big draw that Nascar thinks it is. In general, looking at the attendance and viewership during the contrived playoff, the problem seems to be more with the format than the location.