While the rest of the playoff field had to sweat it out, Kyle Larson made mastering the revamped Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL look easy.
Larson dominated the Bank of America ROVAL 400 on Sunday (Oct. 13) for his sixth NASCAR Cup Series win of the season.
Larson had already clinched a spot in the Round of 8 with a stage 2 win. It was his second career win on Charlotte’s ROVAL.
“It’s the first time in my playoff career where I wasn’t close to the cutline,” Larson said in a post-race interview with NBC. “It was nice to have kind of a stress free weekend. I think the first time I’ve been here without crashing since the other one we won. Good weekend.”
Christopher Bell finished runner-up and William Byron came home third. Both had clinched spots in the Round of 8 prior to the end of Sunday’s race.
Austin Cindric finished fourth, with Chase Elliott rounding out the top five. Cindric’s finish was not enough for him to move on to the Round of 8 in the playoffs while Elliott advances.
AJ Allmendinger, Shane van Gisbergen, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney made up the rest of the top 10. Blaney will move on to the next round of the playoffs.
Regular-season champion Tyler Reddick went through a whirlwind day to be the final driver above the cut line.
After winning stage two, Reddick was collected in a stack up in turn 7 that damaged the rear suspension.
After struggling with pace, Reddick made up 15 spots over the final green-flag run and finished 11th.
“This thing was destroyed,” Reddick said. “Hats off to the Monster Energy team for the work they’ve done on this Toyota Camry. This thing couldn’t go within four seconds of what the pace was and we just kept working on it. We made it a lot better for stage three. This is how this place can be sometimes.”
Denny Hamlin also advanced with a 14th-place finish. Alex Bowman initially made it in 18th, making it four Hendrick Motorsports teams in the Round of 8, but was disqualified postrace for his No. 48 failing postrace ride weight requirements.
Logano, who initially missed the cut line by four points, instead made the Round of 8.
Daniel Suarez looked to be a contender before brake issues relegated him to 31st, eliminating him from the playoffs. Chase Briscoe’s playoff run ended with a 37th-place finish after an accident.
Polesitter van Gisbergen led the first 21 laps before pitting near the end of the opening stage….
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