Trackhouse Racing experienced the full gamut of emotions in the season’s final road-course race Sunday.
Shane van Gisbergen dominated again on the NASCAR Cup Series’ twisty layouts by winning the Bank of America Roval 400 Round of 12 elimination race, but teammate Ross Chastain was trimmed from title contention at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.
van Gisbergen used his No. 88 Chevrolet to chase down two-time Roval winner Kyle Larson and record his fifth straight victory on the road courses by walloping Larson by 15.16 seconds for his sixth win in 46 career starts, all on the curvy configurations.
After failing to win in the season’s first road event at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, van Gisbergen reeled off wins at Mexico City, the Chicago Street Race, Sonoma and Watkins Glen before Sunday’s checkers, his first at the Charlotte layout.
Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell followed the pair.
van Gisbergen thought he had a tire coming apart and had to get physical while passing Larson for the lead with a dozen circuits left.
“I gave him a little bump in (Turn) seven by accident, and he just slammed me and that sort of set it off,” said van Gisbergen, who led a race-high 57 laps. “I’m all for it — it was fun. I hope he’s not too pissed off.”
Chastain held a four-point lead over Joey Logano for the final spot in the Round of 8 group but had the advantage trimmed to one. He was passed on the final lap and wrecked Denny Hamlin coming to the checkers, which eliminated Chastain by four points while competing with Logano, who held the tiebreaker, for the last playoff position.
The No. 1 driver made two mistakes on pit road, including a speeding penalty with 20 laps left, that doomed his title hopes.
“Trackhouse expects so much more out of me,” Chastain said candidly after driving to the finish line in reverse. “Just unforced errors, just terrible. … Not acceptable. Just completely unacceptable. No one else had a hand in it but me.
“It’s terrible to get to this level and not perform. When you watch and you learn and you study for half of your life to get here and you fail is a terrible feeling right now.”
Polesitter Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric also did not advance.
In the season’s 32nd race, Reddick lined up next to van Gisbergen and took off, but the road-course hot shoe from New Zealand passed the No. 45 Toyota coming to Lap 5.
Needing a win to advance, Cindric ran into problems before the first pit stops on Lap 10. The Team Penske driver slipped from 17th to 37th on the grid, putting him in more jeopardy in the standings.
van Gisbergen led 17 of the 25 laps in claiming Stage 1 by nearly eight seconds over Larson. Following Ty Gibbs and Bell, fifth-place finisher Chastain earned points to pass Logano in the standings, but Chastain committed the first of his two pit-road snafus by blowing the lane’s exit and yielded 15 spots.
Cindric’s chances ended on Lap 33 when Carson Hocevar locked up his brakes and rammed the No. 2 Ford.
Ryan Blaney scored the win in Stage 2, but again, fourth-place Chastain managed to move up by earning seven playoff points.
After pit stops on Laps 72 and 73, Larson emerged as the leader with Bell and van Gisbergen in hot pursuit to set up the finish.
Playoff Round of 8 field:
1. Denny Hamlin
2. Ryan Blaney
3. Kyle Larson
4. William Byron
5. Christopher Bell
6. Chase Elliott
7. Chase Briscoe
8. Joey Logano
–Field Level Media
