Kyle Larson wins The Roval, Bowman DQ’ed

Kyle Larson has been coming in clutch during the playoffs, having a dominating performance at Bristol in the Round of 16 elimination race, now the same with the Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. 

The Round of 8 looked set until Alex Bowman failed post-race inspection, causing him to lose his playoff spot, and putting two-time champion Joey Logano in, who had originally been the first one out by a few points. Tyler Reddick recovered after bending a toe-link to gain enough to advance. The reason of Bowman’s disqualification was for weight requirements. 

Larson would lead for 62 of the final 82 laps, as he finished 1.511 seconds ahead of Christopher Bell, who managed to run up front but didn’t have enough to get to Larson. William Byron, who also advances with Larson and Bell, finished in third.

“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 Alex Bowman in not advancing was Austin Cindric, who finished fourth, Daniel Suarez, who finished 31st, and Chase Briscoe, who finished 37th. 

Shane van Gisbergen won his first career Cup Series pole and would lead for 21 laps, resulting his way to a seventh-place finish.

In the newly reconfigured Turn 7 hairpin, stage one winner Tyler Reddick, who was caught up in traffic after pitting during the stage break, rammed into Denny Hamlin after Austin Dillon was turned around, in what was a major stack-up in the turn. This caused Reddick to have a bent toe link. Reddick would fight through the rest of the race trying to find speed, and then late in the race, his crew chief, Billy Scott, called for fresh tires that help him advance on points.

“Huge props to everyone on this Monster Energy Toyota Camry. ” Reddick said. “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.”

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. Alex Bowman was nine points above the elimination line at the finish before being disqualified. Had he advanced, all four Hendrick cars would have been in the Round of 8. 

AJ Allmendinger, SVG, Logano, Bubba Wallace, and Blaney rounded out the top ten. The Round of 8 begins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week.