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October 13, 2024
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
CONCORD, N.C.—Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 was as much about Tyler Reddick’s heroic drive into the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs as it was about Kyle Larson’s continued domination of elimination races.
As Larson cruised to his second Playoff victory this season—and his second in an elimination race—Reddick charged forward from 26th after a Lap 84 restart and clawed his way to 11th—good enough to knock two-time series champion Joey Logano out of the Playoffs by eight points.
Logano’s exit was temporary, however. In post-race inspection, Alex Bowman’s Chevrolet failed NASCAR’s weight requirement and was disqualified, knocking the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet below the elimination line and restoring Logano to the Round of 8.
Mirroring his rout in the final Round of16 event at Bristol Motor Speedway, Larson grabbed the lead for the restart of Stage 2 and stayed out front for 62 of the final 82 laps at the 2.28-mile, 17-turn Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.
The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet crossed the finish line 1.511 seconds ahead of Christopher Bell, the only driver who could stay in the same zip code with the race winner. Third-place William Byron was 8.965 seconds behind at the finish.
With his sixth victory of the season, his second at the Roval and the 29th of his career, Larson led two other Hendrick teammates into the final eight—Byron, and fifth-place finisher Chase Elliott.
“Really, it’s the first time in my Playoff career I’ve not been close to the cut line, so it was good to kind of have a little bit stress-free of a weekend,” said Larson, whose previous win at the Roval came during his 2021 championship season. “I think the first time I’ve been here without crashing, maybe, besides the other time I won.
“It’s known that I don’t really use the sim (simulator) much, and I was in the sim this week. It really helped me get into a rhythm I think early on and helped us kind of fine-tune our car, too.”
Joining Bowman on the sidelines were Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (fourth on Sunday), Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez (31st) and Stewart-Haas Racin’gs Chase Briscoe (37th), leaving reigning series champion Ryan Blaney (10th) and Logano as the two Ford drivers left in the Playoff field.
If Larson’s dominating run stole the suspense from his victory, Reddick’s charge over the final 26-lap green-flag run provided nail-biting drama.
After pole winner Shane van Gisbergen (21 laps led) and Larson pitted from the top two spots in Stage 1, Reddick, the regular-season champion, stayed out in the lead to collect 10 stage points and an additional Playoff point on Lap 25.
A pit stop during the stage break mired Reddick in traffic for a Lap 30 restart, and then calamity struck. In the newly reconfigured Turn 7 hairpin, the new corner of chaos, Austin Dillon turned sideways in a melee that saw Reddick jump the curbing and smash into his 23XI Racing team owner Denny Hamlin.
Reddick’s car was severely damaged, and only a succession of pit stops throughout the remainder of the race—including a lengthy sojourn under caution to repair the left-rear toe link—made it competitive for the final run.
“Yeah, I thought I was going to flip, but I think I was behind the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.)—trying to work the move to the inside,” Reddick said of the wreck. “I got clear of him—I saw the 3 (Dillon) spun and everyone on the binders coming to a stop, and of course, me and my boss (Hamlin) get together. It was like I was going to do a front flip. This thing was absolutely destroyed.
“Huge props to everyone on this Monster Energy Toyota Camry. This thing couldn’t go within four seconds of what the pace was, and we just kept working on it. We were a lot better in Stage 3. This is how this place can be sometimes, but it is really nice to pull this off.”
It was crew chief Billy Scott’s call to bring Reddick to pit road for new tires under caution on Lap 82 that proved decisive. The fresh Goodyears were the ammunition Reddick needed to pass 15 cars during the final run and eclipse Logano’s point total by four.
But the drama became moot with Bowman’s disqualification.
“You just have to stay calm,” Reddick said. “You just have to stay focused. In those moments, it is so easy to lose control. Either way, I was going to drive the car as fast as I could. It just worked out for us that this thing was able to get back through the field and get us to the good side of the cut line.”
By the time the second stage ended, Larson and Bell had clinched spots in the Round of 8. Hamlin, who ran 14th on Sunday, also advanced. Bowman was nine points above the elimination line at the finish before the crushing disqualification and would have been the fourth Hendrick driver in the final eight.
At the checkered flag on Sunday, AJ Allmendinger was sixth, followed by Van Gisbergen, Logano, Bubba Wallace, Blaney and Reddick.
