The NASCAR Cup Series playoff Round of 12 has its elimination race Sunday at the centre of it all in Charlotte, N.C. While the trip to the track will be a short one, the added pressure on about six drivers will be immense.
That's because the playoffs are headed to the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course, aka the Roval, for the final road test of 2025.
Designed to weave its way through the 1.5-mile speedway that hosts the Coca-Cola 600, the 17-turn, 2.32-mile road course has been a challenging and occasionally thrilling layout since the first lap was turned there in 2018.
In that dramatic debut, Ryan Blaney watched as Jimmie Johnson tried to pass leader Martin Truex Jr. in the final chicane, causing a wreck between the former champions and sending then-third-place Blaney to his second career victory and first with Team Penske.
Sunday afternoon's event will be the eighth at the oddly-configured track. Hendrick Motorsports' Chase Elliott (2019, 2020) and defending winner Kyle Larson (2021, 2024) have accounted for over half the wins, while Christopher Bell and A.J. Allmendinger have also notched checkers.
Thus far, the playoffs have provided drama, and the series arrives in Charlotte with its winningest driver Denny Hamlin again catching heat two weeks after he dumped Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs at New Hampshire.
Hamlin, who owns the No 23 23XI Racing Toyota driven by Bubba Wallace, battled side-by-side with the 2025 Brickyard 400 winner on the final lap.
Lacking power steering and pushing hard on the inside of Wallace's Camry, Hamlin drifted high in Turn 3 and took them both toward the wall, killing momentum and allowing Elliott to slip by, bang doors with Hamlin's No 11 and advance to the Round of 8.
Was Hamlin, seeking career victory No 60 and his series-high sixth win this season, supposed to let the car he co-owns with Michael Jordan finish first and send Wallace to the next round?
Evidently not.
"On Sunday I am the driver," Hamlin explained on his podcast. "The person in the 11 car is the driver. That's where the disconnect, I think, comes from. People expect me to be a different person, they expect me to be the guy with the 23XI shirt on when I'm in the 11 car, and that's just not possible."
Ninth-place Ross Chastain trails reigning champ Joey Logano by 13 points, and seventh-place JGR pilot Chase Briscoe is 21 points to the good. Unless there is a complete collapse by Briscoe or Logano, 10th-place Wallace (-26) and teammate Tyler Reddick (-29) will need a miraculous combination of events or a victory, while last-place Austin Cindric (-48) is in must-win mode.
Shane van Gisbergen, Chastain's Trackhouse Racing partner, has won the past four road-course races, but teammates racing hard against one another may reach its peak level Sunday just like what happened with Hamlin and Wallace last weekend.
"I have zero doubts in my mind – I know because I know where my mind was in that moment – that I was racing the 23 the same as I would race anybody in that moment," Hamlin said of roughing up his driver. "Truthfully, I'd have raced my teammates the same way." Ty Gibbs would second that.
In Saturday's qualifying session, 23XI Racing's Reddick, likely needing a win, took the top spot by navigating the tricky configuration in 85.939 seconds to beat road-racing ace van Gisbergen by 0.032 seconds.
The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driven by Ty Gibbs will start third followed by Larson's No 5 Chevrolet. Chris Buescher's No 17 qualified fifth, the highest positioned Ford.
Last in the dozen drivers seeking to advance to the Round of 8, Cindric gridded 19th with Team Penske teammate Logano in 17th