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By Zach Sturniolo NASCAR.com October 6, 2022, at 9:09 AM
Photo: Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
With the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs halfway over, the Round of 12 comes to a close at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.
Four drivers will be eliminated following the Bank of America ROVAL 400 on Sunday afternoon (2 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) while eight drivers will continue chasing their championship hopes.
Get set for the race weekend with everything you need to know here:
RELATED: Weekend schedule | Cup Series standings
GETTING ACQUAINTED
Practice is back on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule this weekend ahead of Sunday’s race.
Teams will be broken into Groups A and B for 20 minutes of practice (12 p.m. ET, NBC Sports App; USA Network at 12:30 p.m.) for each group, respectively. Following practice, the series will roll into two rounds of qualifying set to begin at 1 p.m. to set the starting lineup.
With the postseason underway, playoff drivers and teams will be ordered by their previous race metrics and assigned to Group A or B by the usual odd/even metric procedures. Playoff teams will be the final cars to qualify in their respective groups.
Each group’s round will run for 15 minutes. The fastest five drivers from each group will advance to the final round of qualifying, where those 10 drivers will have a 10-minute session to fight for the Busch Light Pole Award. The driver who sets the quickest lap in the session will start first on Sunday.
MORE: Paint Scheme Preview | Qualifying order
ROVAL STORY LINES
— Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will unfortunately be one of the four drivers eliminated from playoff contention. Bowman, who won his way into the postseason at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March, will miss his second consecutive race as he recovers from concussion-like symptoms sustained at Texas Motor Speedway, where the Round of 12 opened.
— Nineteen different drivers have won this year, tied for the most all-time.
— Chase Elliott has scored 46 playoff points this season, 21 more than Joey Logano who holds the second-most with 25 playoff points.
— Tyler Reddick has won three of the last 14 races, with teammate Austin Dillon picking up another victory (Daytona) for Richard Childress Racing in that span.
— Denny Hamlin is the only driver to start the 2022 playoffs with top 10s in all five races. Forty-two percent of his top 10s this year have come in the last five races (five of 12).
— Reddick has won twice on road courses this year, the only driver to score multiple road-course victories.
— Chevrolet has won a series-record 11 consecutive road-course races.
— Each of Chase Elliott’s last 12 wins came at a different track. Four of the 12 were on road courses.
— Chase Elliott is winless in his last eight road-course starts, his longest winless streak on road courses.
— The last eight races have each been won by different drivers — Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Reddick and Chase Elliott.
— Hendrick Motorsports won 11 of the last 19 road-course races. Only one organization has more all time road-course wins than Hendrick scored during that span (Joe Gibbs Racing, 13 all-time road-course wins.)
Source: Racing Insights
GOODYEAR TIRES
Teams will have plenty of familiarity with this week’s Goodyear tires at the Charlotte Roval.
Goodyear is providing teams with the same tire setup that was used at Road America, Watkins Glen International, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. The left-front/right-rear tire codes were also utilized at the season’s first road race at Circuit of The Americas in March.
“This is a well-established tire that the Cup cars are running on the Roval this week,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “When adding the race at COTA, when we ran this same tire with just one code, Cup teams have run this setup at four races already this season. Having such a consistent tire choice gives teams the chance to refer back to prior races in determining how to set up their cars. A lot has changed since last year’s race at the Roval, so having an established tire removes one variable for the teams to worry about.”
CHARLOTTE HISTORY
— Starting in 2018, the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been contested on the newly built infield road course known as the Roval.
— AJ Allmendinger did an initial test of the 18-turn, 2.3-mile layout of the Charlotte Roval in January 2017.
— That original course was shortened from 18 to 17 turns. The removal of the A turn in the infield portion of the track shortened lap times by 15-20 seconds. Chicanes were added to the backstretch before the oval’s Turn 3 and on the frontstretch before the start/finish line. The final layout of the course for 2018 was set at 17 turns and 2.28 miles.
— The Roval serves as Charlotte’s first road course in the track’s 58-year existence; the first road-course race to appear in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and the longest road-course event in NASCAR at 400 kilometers.
— In June 2019, Charlotte Motor Speedway officials expanded the configuration of the backstretch chicane. The chicane was originally 32 feet wide, but the updated version in 2019 became 54 feet wide and featured additional runoff areas which were not available in the original configuration. The inside wall of the oval near turn 3 was also moved back to accommodate more on-track space for the updated chicane.
— The average green-flag stretch was 10 laps or less in each of the four Roval races. The longest green-flag stretch at the Roval was 31 laps in 2018.
Source: Racing Insights
BEST BETS THROUGH TWISTS AND TURNS
Two words should guide your expectations this weekend: Hendrick Motorsports.
Hendrick drivers have won three of the four races on the Charlotte Roval, with Chase Elliott going back-to-back in 2019 and 2020 and Kyle Larson taking the checkered flag last year. The oddsmakers are paying plenty of attention to that as Elliott enters Sunday as the favorite at 4-1 odds, according to BetMGM. Larson isn’t far behind at 8-1.
Snuck in between those two is the only driver to score multiple road wins in 2022 — Tyler Reddick (6-1). Reddick scored his first career victories at Road America and the Indy road course this summer, both of which featured this tire as well. Where’d he finish the other road race in that span? Seventh at Watkins Glen.
It’s also worth keeping an eye on AJ Allmendinger at 10-1 odds. Allmendinger, who will race full-time with Kaulig Racing in 2023, has won each of the last three Xfinity races on the Roval, finished seventh in the inaugural Cup race there and led five laps a season ago before mechanical issues led to a DNF.
MORE: Complete list of odds for Sunday
FANTASY LIVE
Want to manage a team and race your way to the top of the leaderboards? Check out NASCAR Fantasy Live, which reset for the playoffs. The free-to-play game lets you choose your drivers each week and show off your crew-chief instincts by garaging a driver by the end of Stage 2, and there is a $10,000 prize for the playoff winner.
The 2022 Fantasy Live points leaders are Chase Elliott (1,076), Ryan Blaney (961) and Kyle Larson (943).
In addition to Fantasy Live, NASCAR.com is offering the Playoffs Grid Challenge presented by Ruoff Mortgage during the playoffs.
How to play: Fantasy Live | Set up a team today!
ALSO ON NASCAR.COM
Get additional camera views by logging on to NASCAR Drive, where each week the full field of in-car cameras will be available — as well as a battle cam and an overhead look.
NASCAR has partnered with LiveLike to add fan engagement in the NASCAR Mobile App. Log in to the mobile app during the race for polls, quizzes, the cheer meter and more — and see instant results from NASCAR fans like you.
