The NASCAR Cup race at Charlotte’s ROVAL wasn’t just a Sunday drive around a road course with some banked corners thrown in. It was a full-blown double feature—like ordering a hot dog and finding out it came with a steak dinner and fireworks. On one side of the screen, the fight for the win. On the other, a demolition derby disguised as the last-gasp playoff transfer battle. And both storylines came with endings that were equal parts brilliance and heartbreak.
Yes, Shane van Gisbergen won his fifth consecutive road course race this season, which at this point feels less like a streak and more like a physics experiment gone wrong. The Kiwi doesn’t just win these things—he toys with them. But Sunday wasn’t a sightseeing tour through the Carolina pines. It was a bar fight with racing licenses. Van Gisbergen very nearly didn’t make it, nursing a dying tire to the finish. Yet he still managed to stick to his bizarre new tradition: sign a rugby ball, punt it into the grandstands, and remind everyone he’s still a stranger in a very strange land.
That would’ve been enough drama for one afternoon. But Charlotte’s ROVAL had other ideas. Because just behind SVG’s victory celebration was another story altogether: a winner-take-all street fight over the final playoff transfer spot. It ended on the very last lap of the very last corner, with Ross Chastain backing across the finish line and Joey Logano blowing past to swipe the last golden ticket into the Round of 8. NASCAR couldn’t have scripted it better without calling Hollywood.
The day began with Tyler Reddick on pole, looking like he might just keep SVG at bay. But van Gisbergen was only being polite. By lap three, he’d stolen the lead in the backstretch chicane, and by lap 13 he was four-and-a-half seconds clear of Kyle Larson. After pit stops shuffled things, he tore back through the field and was back in the lead by lap 19, cruising to the Stage 1 win by 8.2 seconds. Larson’s second-place finish locked him into the Round of 8. Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, and Chastain rounded out the top five.
Stage 2 flipped the script when ten cars stayed out, putting AJ Allmendinger on the point and burying SVG and Larson mid-pack. That lasted all of about 60 seconds. By the end of the lap, both had carved forward like chainsaws through soft wood.
Not everyone was carving though. Austin Cindric entered the day clinging to his playoff hopes with chewing gum and string. Carson Hocevar erased those hopes by slamming into him in the frontstretch chicane. The Penske Ford limped to the garage with a busted suspension, ending Cindric’s day and his playoff run.
Chastain nearly joined him in the scrap heap. He overshot pit road during stops and had to restart 30th. But in classic “Melon Man” fashion, he stormed through the field and somehow finished Stage 2 in fourth. That was significant because Logano, his rival for the cutoff, could only manage seventh. Chastain bagged seven stage points, Logano just three. Advantage: watermelon farmer.
Ryan Blaney won that stage, Reddick followed, and Chase Elliott came home third. Bell’s steady seventh-place finish clinched his advancement into the next round, joining Larson.
The last act was chaos wrapped in strategy. Larson muscled past SVG on lap 62, Bell jumped into second, and suddenly the Kiwi looked human. A caution for Austin Dillon’s crash bunched the field, and it became a chess match of pit stops and tire calls. Larson pitted on lap 71, SVG on 72, and suddenly it was fresh versus worn rubber with everything on the line.
And all eyes swung to the playoff knife fight. Chastain got popped for speeding on pit road and had to serve a pass-through. Somehow, impossibly, he clawed back to retake Logano with just over 11 laps left. But Team Penske countered by calling Logano in for fresh tires on lap 98. That left Chastain stuck on old rubber and praying for a miracle.
Up front, SVG’s right rear tire was unraveling like a cheap sweater. With five to go, smoke poured from the car. But with a 20-second lead, he tiptoed it home and still won by more than 15 seconds over Larson. Bell, Buescher, and Michael McDowell rounded out the top five.
The chaos wasn’t done. AJ Allmendinger spun out of the final chicane and crossed the line backwards in ninth. And then came the gut-punch moment: Chastain, tangling with Denny Hamlin, spun in the same chicane and also crossed the line in reverse. The crowd roared—until Logano blew by, beating him to the line by a single spot. One in, one out.
So it’s Chastain, Cindric, Bubba Wallace, and Reddick who end up tossed into the playoff scrap heap. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin carries the top seed into the Round of 8. Next stop: Las Vegas, where the drivers will roll the dice again—and the only sure bet is that someone’s luck is about to run out.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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