Charlotte, NC — NASCAR hits up their one and only road course in the playoffs. This will be the 2nd elimination race in the playoffs. Alex Bowman announced he will miss the next few races with a concussion. He may return to Phoenix for the championship race. Joey Logano (P) grabbed the pole during Saturday’s qualifying session at the Charlotte ROVAL™. At the end of the first lap, the no. 3 of Austin Dillon would miss the front straight chicane. He failed to come to a full stop so NASCAR will require him to perform a pass-through under green. The no. 45 of Bubba Wallace locks the tires up on lap 4 and misses the front straight chicane. He would pit the next lap for flat spotted tires. The no. 18 of Kyle Busch and no. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will also miss the front chicane on laps 14 and 16, respectively. Green flag pit stops happen on lap 23. The no. 42 of Ty Dillon will receive a black flag for men over the wall too soon. However, nothing would stop the no. 22 of Joey Logano (P) from winning stage 1 on lap 25. A spotless stage 1 with just a few mistakes so far in the race. On lap 30, the no. 8 of Tyler Reddick (P) would restart stage 2 in the lead, however, the no. 16 of AJ Allmendinger would take the lead of the race just one lap into stage 2. On lap 39, the no. 48 of Noah Gragson and no. 7 of Corey LaJoie would both miss the back chicane while battling for track position. The no. 1 of Ross Chastain (P) would miss the back chicane on lap 42. Coming to the end of stage 2, most cars would pit under green for fuel and tires, including our race leader, AJ Allmendinger. On lap 50, the no. 1 of Ross Chastain (P) would win stage 2. The no. 8 of Tyler Reddick (P) would retake the lead of the race during stage yellow. On lap 57, the no. 14 of Chase Briscoe (P) and the no. 7 of Corey LaJoie would make hard contact in the back chicane. This may have damaged the toe on the 14 car but it’s minor. The no. 50 of Conor Daly would bring his car to pit road with an electrical fire in the dash on lap 61. Green flag pit stops would start on lap 70. On lap 83, the no. 1 of Ross Chastain would make contact with the wall and on the next lap, the no. 2 of Austin Cindric (P) would hit the no. 15 of JJ Yeley over the back chicane. The no. 1 would pit to fix the damage to his car on lap 86 and return to the track on lap 92. On lap 98, the no. 99 of Daniel Suárez (P) would spin the no. 7 in the front chicane. On lap 104, a caution would be called for debris on the track. An advertising banner was hit onto the race track from the grass. Leaders would not pit under this caution. The no. 20 of Christopher Bell (P) would pit from mid-pack. He is currently in a must-win after scoring no stage points today. Restart on lap 107 and Chase Elliott (P) would lead after turn 1. The no. 16 in 2nd. The no. 48 and no. 34 would spin in turn 1. Kevin Harvick would pass both the 16 and 9 through turns 3 and 4. Chase Elliott (P) would spin in turn 6. The no. 20, who pitted, would make it up to 3rd place after the chaotic restart. On lap 109, a caution would be called for loose curbing on the back chicane. Overtime attempt 1; Kevin Harvick leads. The no. 20 gets up to 2nd but nos. 12, 34, 9, 77, and 26 all spin in turn 1. No caution is called and Christopher Bell (P) slides past the no. 4 of Kevin Harvick for the lead. The no. 2 will spin the back chicane. On the last lap, the no. 41 of Cole Custer will report a flat tire and abruptly slow down giving his teammate, Chase Briscoe (P), 2 more spots. He is now +2 to the cutline. None of that would affect the no. 20 who would win the race and advance to the round of 8. Tyler Reddick, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, and Kyle Larson would all be eliminated from the round of 12. The race would have only 4 cautions for 10 laps and 1 red flag for 6 minutes and 10 seconds due to the curbing issue late race. The race only took 2 hours, 59 minutes, and 54 seconds to complete. Following the race, NASCAR began an investigation over Cole Custer’s last lap behavior, in which he slowed down on the backstretch — on the pretext of the possibility of him having flat tires, according to radio communications — in order to allow Chase Briscoe to pass 2 drivers and get into the next round. NASCAR assured that the Round of 8 grid would not change as a result of the investigation. On October 11, NASCAR docked Custer 50 driver and owner points, suspended his crew chief Mike Shiplett — who made the flat tire radio communication, instead of the spotter — indefinitely, and fined both $100,000 each, on race manipulation charges. Stewart-HASS Racing has filed for an appeal. This will be heard by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel. The appeal date is TBA currently. After this was announced, NASCAR Twitter was sent into a frenzy and began to point out other occurrences of similar things like this happening — with no penalty being given. It is unsure if any of those incidents will be used in the appeal. NASCAR is 0-7 in appeals this year.

Current Playoff Standings:

1. Chase Elliott – 4,046

2. Joey Logano – 4,026

3. Ross Chastain – 4,021

4. Christopher Bell – 4,018

——————Cutoff Line—————–
5. Ryan Blaney – 4,015

6. William Byron – 4,015

7. Denny Hanlin – 4,013

8. Chase Briscoe – 4,009

The next race will be at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Oct. 16th at 2:30 pm EST. The National Weather Service has the temps around the 70s and a 10% chance of rain.