Sunday’s final race of the Round of 12 will occur at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. Here’s what’s at stake for the Bank of America ROVAL 400.

• Elimination Race – Coming into Sunday’s elimination race: Tyler Reddick (-2), Ross Chastain (-9), Bubba Wallace (-9) and Kyle Busch (-26) are each below the cutline. Can they get back on the positive side or does their championship dreams end at Charlotte? 6 of the last 9 years have seen someone new bump their ways back in on the final race of the second round. The largest margin someone made up without winning though was 19 points. Christopher Bell (-45) had a walk off win last year.
  • Reddick’s on the pole and his last two ROVAL finishes were second and eighth respectively. A year ago on road courses, he had a pair of wins (Road America, Indy) to go along with being fifth (COTA) and seventh (Watkins Glen). This year, he’s finished first (COTA), 33rd (Sonoma), 28th (Chicago), fourth (Indy) and eighth (Watkins Glen) to accumulate the fourth most points (133). He’s only led at COTA though (1x for 41 laps).
  • Chastain was 37th last year and fourth, 10th, 22nd, 17th, 18th on road course this year. He’s led just one single lap on road courses all season and sits 11th in points (113) on them.
  • Wallace has finished 37th, 17th, 31st, 18th, 12th on road courses this season but was seventh here last year. A year ago, he was 38th, 36th, 35th, 5th, 35th, seventh on them. Wallace has 70 points on road courses this year which ranks him 21st.
  • Busch was third a year ago, fourth the year prior and had three Top-5 finishes in as many races to start the road racing season off with including a pair of runner-ups. He was 36th at Indy but was in the top five before an issue. Watkins Glen they were just 14th. This car was runner-up in 2021. Busch has the sixth most points tabulated on road courses this season at 123.
• Keselowski In Trouble? They’re chasing Brad Keselowski at the moment. He’ll however start 19th. These have also become his worst tracks. He’s finished 35th, 16th, 24th, 20th and 15th on them this season. Last year, he was 14th, 10th, 33rd, 20th, 19th and 14th respectively. Even in 2021 he went fifth, 19th, 15th, 13th, 35th, 24th and 20th respectively. He’s finished 13th or worse in 18 of his last 20 starts on these tracks. Which is why being 22nd in points scored (69) this season on them is no surprise.
• Non Playoff Winner? Just three non-Playoff drivers have won the sixth race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs: Jeff Gordon (2005) won the Playoff race at Martinsville Speedway he was ranked 15th in the series standings at the time of the win. Clint Bowyer (2011) won the Playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway he was ranked 13th in the series standings at the time of the win. Jamie McMurray (2013) won the Playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway he was ranked 14th in the series standings at the time of the win. As you can see, it hasn’t happened since the new format was adopted in 2014 and none of the previous three were at Charlotte on the ROVAL. So, that likely means the winner on Sunday will be among the 12 drivers left in the playoff field.
• Strategy With Stage Breaks – With the points being so close, it’s going to be interesting to see how teams tackle this 109 lap race. Who goes for stage points and who positions themselves for the win? With 3 of the 4 drivers below the cutline within 9 points, you can’t afford to not score points when they’re potentially on the table. For those above, you don’t want to punt away on points and let them close the gap either. However, winning is the easiest path to the Round of 8 but if you take stage points, you’ll be behind in the money stage too. Last year, none of the road course races saw a driver that had won finish in points in Stage 1. This year, without stage breaks, they’ve finished 23rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 2nd.
  • In Stage 2 a season ago, they finished: 8th (COTA), 4th (Sonoma), 10th (Road America), no points (Indy) and 8th (Watkins Glen), no points (ROVAL). This year in Stage 2: 1st (COTA), 7th (Sonoma), 3rd (Chicago), 2nd (Indy) and 1st (Watkins Glen). See how much it’s changed?
• Clean Or Chaos? Just because we have stage breaks back again doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be a clean race either. Be careful what you ask for here. The first 104 laps of last year’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 was as tame as an elimination race could possibly be. The debris caution with seven laps left changed thing. Without cautions for stage breaks this season, Indy had just 1 caution for 3 laps. Watkins Glen had 1 for 4 laps. Last year, until inside of 10 laps-to-go, we had just two cautions and both were for stage break and it didn’t spice up the show.