For the past seven years, NASCAR has chosen to run the road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway known as The Roval. Like Daytona, the road course at Charlotte incorporates part of the 1.5 mile oval track.
For the 2026 fall playoff race, NASCAR has decided to return to the 1.5 mile oval track and leave The Roval.
NASCAR originally added The Roval in 2018 for a bit of variety in the schedule – Prior to the addition of The Roval, the Cup Series only ran road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen.
Now running six and seven road course races a season in the Cup Series, the lure of road course racing in the Next Gen car has waned in the past few years.
According to Denny Hamlin, “the best racing you are going to find is the oval. It’s really hard to bring an example of when the Roval will be better, unless you throw in a green-white-checkered finish.”
Hamlin added, “the oval and this car work well together. He added that the Roval mainly stayed in the playoffs to keep a road course in the mix. “Other than that, I can’t really see where it has a place.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr also responded to the news of returning to The Roval saying, “The Roval will always be there when they want to bring it back. The oval has been solid recently. No reason not to take advantage of that. One may complain about the lack of road courses in the Chase. It makes zero difference to me either way.”
It is expected that all 10 of the playoff races will be run on oval tracks.