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Van Gisbergen cruises to victory in Cup Series elimination nail biter in Charlotte

As expected, road course maven Shane van Gisbergen won Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400, but that was only a small part of the story at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.

Long after van Gisbergen took the checkered flag to record his fifth straight road course victory of the NASCAR Cup Series season, Ross Chastain made a banzai run in the frontstretch chicane and wiped out Denny Hamlin’s Toyota in a desperate attempt to secure the final spot in the Playoffs’ Round of 8.

Spinning after the contact with Hamlin’s car, Chastain threw his car into reverse and sped backwards across the finish line, but the effort proved futile. The final Round of 8 spot instead went to defending series champion Joey Logano, who finished 20th and advanced by four points over the Trackhouse Racing driver.

A pair of mistakes on pit road cost Chastain dearly. At the first stage break, he ran wide into the 90-degree corner at the exit from pit road, missed the turn and came to a stop, losing 15 positions to restart 30th.

After recovering from that error and putting himself in position to advance, Chastain sped on pit road on lap 87 of 109, ran long to the finish and lost too many spots on the final two laps to hold off Logano.

“(Trackhouse owner) Justin (Marks) hired me to carry this No. 1 car and to drive it and to be a leader, and I just completely unraveled our day,” a crestfallen Chastain said. “We definitely had the speed on the last lap, and missed turn 7, and I slid the rear tires and let the No. 11 (Hamlin) by.

“Yeah, not acceptable. I just completely … you know, just completely unacceptable.”

Logano was delighted to escape the race at the 2.28-mile circuit with the opportunity for a fourth NASCAR Cup Series title intact.

“Such a close finish there,” he said. “Yeah, knew it was within a point there (before the last-corner collision). I knew we were going to be tied there at the end, and Ross was going to do whatever he had to do to make it happen. Geesh, just wasn’t quite fast enough today w ith our car.

“It’s the drama of the playoffs. If you want drama, the playoffs bring it every time.”

Eliminated along with Chastain were pole winner Tyler Reddick (10th), Bubba Wallace (15th) and Austin Cindric, who needed a win to advance and instead finished last (37th) after a litany of issues throughout the race.

Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott already had advanced to the Round of 8 with respective Round of 12 victories at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway. Race runner-up Kyle Larson, third-place Christopher Bell, William Byron, Chase Briscoe, Hamlin and Logano joined them after Sunday’s elimination race.

Both Larson and Bell made van Gisbergen’s task harder than usual. The New Zealander, however, was so good at managing his fragile tires that he finished the final 59-lap stage on two pit stops compared with three for his closest pursuers.

The result was a whopping 15.160s margin of victory over Larson for the driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. The victory was his fifth of the season and sixth overall, and his five straight road course wins are one short of Jeff Gordon’s series record, set from 1997 through 2000.

Both Bell and Larson were aggressive in their attempts to unseat NASCAR’s current road course king. On lap 63, Larson muscled his way past van Gisbergen, with Bell following into second.

After a cycle of green-flag pit stops, the Kiwi passed Bell for second. Eight laps later, he dived to the inside of Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet in the Turn 7 hairpin and regained the lead.

After another round of pit stops, SVG and Larson swapped the lead with significant contact between their cars before van Gisbergen passed Larson through the backstretch chicane on lap 98 and held it the rest of the way. 

“Yeah, just started getting hot and sliding around, but what an awesome race,” van Gisbergen said. “Kyle and Christopher driving really good and got a little rough, but, man, the battle was awesome.

“With the Chevy, I lost it a little bit at the start of Stage 3, and whatever they did for the rest of the race, unbelievable. Really enjoyed that, and that was a long time waiting, hoping the yellow wasn’t going to come out (as he ran late on older tires).” 

Briscoe made the Round of 8 by 19 points with a 14th-place finish despite feeling ill during the race. At one point, he asked for a bag of ice, which he stuffed inside his driver’s suit.

“It was definitely an odd day,” Briscoe said. “We definitely just weren’t that great. I don’t know. They gave me a pill in the beginning, and I felt a lot better. I was just so dizzy … I’ve been fighting something all week, and I sound terrible, I’m sure.

“After those first 20 laps, I was able to kind of feel fine. At the end I was struggling a little bit, but I was just focusing on not making any mistakes. Not a super pretty day for our Bass Pro Shops, Tracker Toyota. It was good enough – that’s all we needed to do.”

Non-Playoff drivers Chris Buescher, Michael McDowell, Ryan Preece and Daniel Suarez finished fourth through seventh, respectively. Elliott was eighth, followed by AJ Allmendinger and Reddick.

The Round of 8 begins next Sunday with the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (5:30 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

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