After dominating the second half of the race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, AJ Allmendinger put his road racing abilities on full display and held off a late charge by William Byron to win the Bank of America Roval 400, earning his first win of the 2023 season and third of his Cup Series career. All three of Allmendinger's Cup Series wins have come on road courses, and Sunday's victory marks his first since Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2021 and the second in team history for Kaulig Racing.
Allmendinger's win is the first by a non-playoff driver this season, formally upstaging the playoff drivers in the elimination race for the Round of 12. Past champions Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, 2022 championship runner-up Ross Chastain, and Bubba Wallace have all been eliminated from the playoffs and will not advance to the Round of 8.
Bank of America Roval 400 unofficial results
- #16 - AJ Allmendinger
- #24 - William Byron
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #54 - Ty Gibbs (R)
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #1 - Ross Chastain
Allmendinger, always the emotional sort, was an outright basket case on the cooldown lap and just as emotional celebrating his win afterward. The 41-year-old fell into tears before breaking out in full-throat hype and going into the crowd to celebrate a vindicating win that eases the sting of what has otherwise been a frustrating season.
Explaining his emotion, Allmendinger -- now a new father -- attributed it to not knowing if he'd ever get the opportunity to win a Cup race again.
"I love all the men and women at Kaulig Racing so much. First of all, hi to my beautiful wife, my new baby boy -- I usually give these checkered flags away, but I'm gonna have to wrap this around Aero. My mom and dad, all my family and friends," Allmendinger told NBC Sports. "Those people see how much anguish and how much I put it on my shoulders when we're struggling. It just means the world. I hate crying right now, but it's a frickin' Cup race, man! You don't know when it's ever gonna happen again!
"... This is why you do it. This is the only reason you do it."
With Allmendinger's win, Kaulig Racing becomes the 10th different organization in the Cup Series to win a race in 2023. That marks the first time at least 10 different teams have won a race in a season since 2011, when 10 teams went to Victory Lane as well. Allmendinger is also the 15th different driver to win a Cup race this year.
Strategy Shakeups
Allmendinger was able to get to the lead and take control of Sunday's race thanks in part to a series of ill-timed incidents that wound up dramatically altering the race and the strategies many teams had chosen to employ to try and gain track position. With the reintroduction of stage breaks, the strategy of "flipping the stage" -- coming to pit road for tires and fuel before the end of the stage, then staying out under caution to gain track position -- was once again in vogue.
Pit cycles, however, were far from straightforward. As Chase Elliott was making his way to pit road from the lead near the end of Stage 2, the caution came out for a crash by Josh Bilicki, forcing Elliott to have to make a hard right hand turn back onto the racetrack before the commitment line and costing him massive amounts of track position as he and others who had yet to pit under green had to do so under yellow.
Not only did actual cautions throw a monkey wrench into teams' plans, but so too did the very idea of a caution. When Michael McDowell cut down a left front tire as a cycle of green flag stops were starting with 39 laps to go, the idea of McDowell's tire coming apart and causing a caution for debris created a massive land rush to pit road led by Allmendinger.
The timing of McDowell's issues and the subsequent mass pitting created some tension as to whether the entire field would be in their fuel window to make it to the end of the race, but several cautions from that point onward would take that out of consideration.
Eight down, eight left
Prevailing in a tight battle for the final spot above the cut line would be Tyler Reddick, as he would use stage points and a sixth-place finish to firmly capitalize on a difficult day for Brad Keselowski. Keselowski had multiple issues with cutting the course, one of which drew a pass-through penalty, and a pedestrian 18th-place finish would leave the 2012 Cup Series champion on the outside looking in.
Kyle Busch, who led six laps and did virtually all he could to try and pull off a walkoff victory in a must-win scenario, came just short of advancing in third place, eliminating the two-time Cup champion from the playoffs along with Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace. Wallace earned a great sum of stage points, but his fate would be sealed when he was spun in the backstretch chicane in a chain reaction between Wallace, Austin Cindric and Daniel Suarez. Wallace would eventually recover and finish 16th, but it wasn't enough for him to advance.
Entering the Round of 8, William Byron (+20) now assumes the top of the championship standings by virtue of his six wins on the 2023 season, and he is followed by Martin Truex Jr. (+15), Denny Hamlin (+11) -- who crashed out of Sunday's race after clinching a Round of 8 spot on points -- and Kyle Larson (+3) above the cut line. Chris Buescher (-3), Tyler Reddick (-8), Christopher Bell (-8) and Ryan Blaney (-10) are below the cut line as the next round and the process of determining the Championship 4 begins.
Race Results Rundown
- In order to find the last time AJ Allmendinger led as many laps (46) in a Cup Series race as he did on Sunday, you have to go all the way back to spring 2012 at Kansas, where Allmendinger led 44 laps from the pole while driving for Team Penske. The only other time he had led over 30 laps in a Cup race since then had been two years later at Sonoma, where he led 35 laps while driving for JTG Daugherty. For reference's sake, Allmendinger led 29 laps and two laps, respectively, in his previous two Cup wins.
- Ty Gibbs' crowning as the 2023 Rookie of the Year is a mere formality at this point, as he'll officially wrap that title up come the checkered flag in Phoenix. That leaves Gibbs with other benchmarks to clear, such as the one he did on Sunday: A fourth-place run marks a new career-best finish for Gibbs, whose four top-five finishes are the most a Cup rookie has had since Erik Jones in 2017.
- Despite missing three races and subsequently missing the playoffs, an eighth-place finish ensured Alex Bowman his sixth-straight season with 10 or more top-10 finishes since joining Hendrick Motorsports full-time in 2018. The next step for Bowman will be to try and end his winless streak at Las Vegas, the site of his last victory in spring 2022.
- As many begin to look ahead to 2024, keep in mind the way Ryan Preece and the No. 41 team are currently running. Preece was denied a top-10 finish after being passed by Ross Chastain on the final lap, but his 11th-place run marks his third top-12 finish in the last four races.
- Austin Dillon certainly needed a somewhat solid finish like he earned at the Charlotte Roval. Despite getting caught up in an accident with Corey LaJoie, Dillon was able to recover to earn a 14th-place finish, his first inside the top 15 since his last top 10 back at Richmond in August.
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was one of four cars that failed to finish the race after an apparent electrical issue caused his car to go up in flames with 13 laps to go. Stenhouse thankfully climbed out of his car and seemed to be unhurt. The Totino's PIzza Rolls will be extra crispy tonight.
Next Race
The Round of 8 begins and the first opportunity to advance to the Championship 4 will be at hand in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Action begins Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
