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For many years, drivers and teams throughout NASCAR knew just what to expect when the playoffs hit the sport's backyard at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That was until the 1.5-mile track and one of NASCAR's most familiar and identifiable speedways got pulled around and twisted about in directions that never could have been imagined before. And now, Charlotte has gone from a Sunday drive around the neighborhood to a true wild-card race that can pull apart championship hopes.

The elimination race in the NASCAR playoffs Round of 12 once again takes place at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval with the sixth-annual Bank of America Roval 400. Since NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports took Charlotte and transformed it into a 2.3-mile, 17-turn combination oval and road course, the Roval has become infamous for combining the precision and discipline of road racing with the tight quarters and high contact of oval racing -- generally with a massive impact on the playoffs.

Thanks to their wins at Texas and Talladega, William Byron and Ryan Blaney have both already advanced to the Round of 8, while five drivers in particular are set to sweat the Roval out. Brad Keselowski currently holds a two-point advantage over Tyler Reddick for the final spot above the cut line, with Reddick, Bubba Wallace (-9), Ross Chastain (-10) and Kyle Busch (-26) all looking to get back in the green before their 2023 championship hopes fade to black.

How to watch the NASCAR playoffs at the Charlotte Roval

Date: Sun., Oct. 8
Location: Charlotte Motor Speedway (Roval) -- Concord, N.C.
Time: 2 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Stream: fubo (try for free)

What to watch

After eliminating stage breaks on road courses for the 2023 season, NASCAR has made an about-face after two relatively lackluster road course races at Indianapolis and Watkins Glen, both of which were marked by extremely long green flag runs and not much action without the field being brought back together on restarts. Several weeks ago, it was announced that stage breaks would return for the Charlotte Roval, guaranteeing at least two cautions with NASCAR officials citing a desire for consistency in the way races were run throughout the playoffs.

Opinions on the decision have been rather mixed -- but then, opinions on racing purity vs. racing's entertainment value always are. The facts, meanwhile, are that the reintroduction of stage breaks will drastically alter the flow of the race from a strategy standpoint.

"You're gonna have to revert back to pitting with two to go in the stage. If you're gonna try to win the race, that's what you have to do," Michael McDowell said following the announcement at Bristol. "That's what I think is unfortunate about it: It actually takes the strategy out of it. You know that if you want to score stage points you're gonna run to the stage break, and if you want to try to win the race you pit with two laps to go.

"Everybody knows what's gonna happen. And so I think it just takes away some of the strategy."

Beyond the element of strategy at the end of stages, whether two guaranteed cautions have a major impact on the race -- or if they prevent the sort of long slog green flag runs with much of the field spread out -- remains to be seen. As of right now, most discussion of the move has centered around grumbling over a seemingly entertainment-based decision over what is, ultimately, an entertainment business.

"My opinion is that it does make the races more entertaining. I do think entertainment is important and I don't think it's gimmicky at all, because we know that it's coming," Joey Logano said at Bristol. "... It's a caution that is determined before we show up to the racetrack, and there's points involved and you can decide how you want to play your race. It's just another strategy option, in my opinion."

News of the week

  • NASCAR announced its 2024 schedules for all three of its national touring series on Wednesday, including the long-awaited Cup Series schedule for next year. The Cup Series will race at Iowa Speedway for the very first time in June, headlining a number of race changes and date swaps that also includes the return of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis and the addition of Atlanta and Watkins Glen to the playoffs.
  • One day after Kevin Harvick was disqualified from a second-place finish at Talladega for windshield fasteners that were not secure, Stewart-Haas Racing announced they would not file an appeal of the penalty. SHR chief competition officer Greg Zipadelli said in a statement the team was in the process of figuring out why bolts that hold the windshield in place had backed out over the course of Sunday's race.
  • NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series drivers Matt Crafton and Nick Sanchez were both penalized by NASCAR for their actions following last Saturday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, which saw the two get into an ugly-looking brawl in the garage area following a late-race accident. Crafton has been fined $25,000, while Sanchez has been fined $5,000.
  • NASCAR announced Thursday that iRacing has acquired NASCAR Team Properties' exclusive simulation-style console racing games license. iRacing will now develop a new NASCAR console game to be released in 2025 on systems including Xbox, PlayStation, the Nintendo Switch and mobile.

Driver to watch

After a missed opportunity to win at Texas Motor Speedway and a mid-pack finish at Talladega Superspeedway, Bubba Wallace enters the Charlotte Roval nine points below the cut line to advance to the Round of 8, facing a potential second-round exit from the playoffs. Considering Wallace did not capitalize on his superspeedway skills to earn stage points and a better finish last week, there is a temptation to suggest Wallace could end up on the outside looking in because of the narrative that he isn't a good road course racer.

Wallace's career to date, indeed, suggests he's a cut below as a road racer. But that's not something Wallace has to be, and he's begun to show that. Since joining 23XI Racing in 2021, Wallace has two top-15 finishes at the Roval including a seventh-place finish last year. And the last time NASCAR raced on a road course at Watkins Glen, Wallace had arguably the most complete road race of his career, starting and finishing 12th.

When asked last week at Talladega how his run at The Glen could influence his performance at the Roval, Wallace made it clear that the two tracks -- a pure road course vs. a combination oval/road course -- were not comparable. However, there were certain breakthroughs in Wallace's overall road racing technique that he has been able to bring with him in his Roval prep.

"That things that I learned at The Glen, like approach-wise on corners and kind of technique stuff, you can carry that over. And so I worked on a little bit of that this week in the sim and picked up some speed and found a decent rhythm," Wallace said. "It's all virtual right now until you get there in real life ... But looking forward to it. I know we've run well there the last couple times we've been on the Roval. So it's all just a matter of surviving and not trying too hard and not getting caught up in somebody else's mess."

Should Wallace and his team execute and run well on Sunday, he has a perfectly legitimate shot of advancing to the Round of 8 given what happened at the Roval last year: William Byron and Christopher Bell entered the race 11 and 33 points back of the cut line, respectively, but both ended up getting back above the cut line and advancing by the checkered flag.

Pick to win

Chase Elliott (+550): Admittedly, this pick goes off of past precedent as opposed to the way that Chase Elliott's 2023 season has actually gone. But it isn't as though all is lost: Elliott won at the Roval two years in a row from 2019 to 2020, and he led 30 laps and was headed toward a third victory last year before late-race cautions took him out of it. Elliott's road course record overall in 2023 remains a very good one, with three top-five finishes including a second at Indianapolis.

Elliott's chances of winning the 2023 championship as a driver are over, but his No. 9 team remains in the thick of the race for the NASCAR owner's championship, giving the sport's Most Popular Driver plenty to race for down the stretch. A win by Elliott would automatically advance his team to the next round, and it would certainly sweeten a season that's been his most challenging as a Cup driver.