Many drivers nervous about racing at ‘roval’
RICHMOND, Va. — Kyle Busch has been one of the last four contenders standing each of the past three years in the NASCAR Cup Series, and now that he has secured his spot in stage two of the playoffs with Saturday night’s win at Richmond Raceway, he’s approaching next Sunday’s race on an unusual and foreign layout at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a devilmay-care attitude.
That could be trouble for others who need to perform to advance.
The elimination race will be run on a combination of Charlotte’s two-mile oval and a road course in the infield. The “roval” is a layout that is narrow in spots and slick in others, one that has vexed many teams even when they were just trying to practice on it.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen more talk about something than the roval, really,” said Joe Gibbs, Busch’s team owner. “We’ve been talking about this thing. And I will say this: I think we wrecked four cars, didn’t we, in practice getting ready for it? I finally said, ‘Nobody else goes over there.’ I’m tired of wrecking stuff.”
Kevin Harvick, who along with Busch shares the series lead with seven victories this year, said he’s “terrified of next week, to tell you the truth, just because there’s so many unknowns.” Despite being third in the points standings after Richmond, Harvick still hasn’t clinched a spot in stage two.
Busch, who doesn’t have that problem, plans to approach it just like any other race: with designs on winning.
“I think you can drive it differently because you can go force the issue sometimes and try to get a win or get a good finish versus just kind of having to be stressed about it the whole day and on your toes about it the whole day,” he said Saturday night as he celebrated the 50th win of his Cup Series career.
Brad Keselowski, who had won three straight races going into Richmond, also has clinched a spot in the next round of the playoffs, and points leader Martin Truex Jr. punched his ticket by winning the first two stages at Richmond.
Busch understands why Harvick — and anyone else needing a good showing at Charlotte — is concerned about what awaits next weekend.
“I think everybody is just nervous because it’s very slick,” Busch said of the roval, which has never hosted a Cup Series race. “I don’t know why it’s so slick. Like when we go to Sonoma, Sonoma doesn’t feel this bad. When you go to the roval, though, you’re just on edge the entire time. It feels like ice. You’re never comfortable.”
That might be especially true for Busch’s teammate Denny Hamlin and seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, with each in need of a strong performance to stay in the title hunt.
Hamlin (29 points), Erik Jones (21), Johnson (six) and Clint Bowyer (four) wiull enter the race as the bottom four in the playoff field, which will be cut to 12 drivers after the race.
Johnson, who won his most recent of seven championships in 2016, joked he would “crash all those guys in front of me” to advance.
“It’s been one of those years,” he said, “but we are going to go down swinging to the bitter end.”