CONCORD, N.C. – Chase Elliott earned the top qualifying spot for the quartet of Hendrick Motorsports drivers at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.
Elliott is starting eighth in the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. This marks his 10th top-10 starting spot of the season. In practice, Elliott ran the 10th-fastest lap. The 27-year-old driver has seven of his NASCAR Cup Series wins on road courses with two of those coming at the Charlotte ROVAL. The Dawsonville, Georgia, native’s 8.00 average finish at this road course is second-best among the Cup Series field and he has led the most laps (94) at this track.
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This season, the No. 9 team is in the hunt for the owner championship and enters Sunday’s race 20 points above the elimination line and fourth in the owner points standings. In the last six races of 2023, Elliott has one top-five finish, five top-10s and a 7.17 average finish.
William Byron is set to start 14th in the No. 24 Z HP Chevy. The 25-year-old driver won the most recent road course race in the Cup Series at Watkins Glen International in August. In five starts at the Charlotte ROVAL, he has a pair of sixth-place finishes and has led the second-most laps (80) in those races. Byron is already locked into the next round by virtue of his win at Texas Motor Speedway to open the Round of 12.
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The No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 of driver Alex Bowman will start 16th in the 109-lap race. Bowman has earned two top-five finishes on road courses this season – a third at Circuit of The Americas and fifth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. His 6.00 average finish at the Charlotte ROVAL stands as the best mark among all drivers in Sunday’s field. In four starts at the 2.32-mile track, the 30-year-old driver has two top-five finishes and four top-10s.
Kyle Larson will line up 36th in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 following an incident in practice. On his eighth lap of practice, the 2021 Cup Series champion hit the wall coming out of the infield section of the 17-turn layout. He took the car to the garage to assess the damage and did not post a qualifying lap. Larson later confirmed to the media that the team is going to a backup car. He finished the practice session with the eighth-fastest lap. The 31-year-old driver enters this weekend 15 points above the elimination line and is seventh in the driver points standings. A 2021 triumph at the ROVAL is among his four road course wins in the Cup Series.
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"We’ve overcome a lot this year alone and now we have something else to overcome," Larson said of having to start at the back of the field. "I know we have the team capable of getting through it and advancing. You never want to put yourself or the team in a tough situation. When you are, you just got to dig down and execute the rest of the way like you should."
Tyler Reddick earned the pole position for the sixth and final road course race of the season.
Sunday’s race will see the return of stage breaks, much like had been used in previous seasons. The prior five road course races this year did not have the yellow flag came out following the end of the stage. Elliott expects that to impact the strategy of the race.
"This time of year getting those stage points is such a crucial thing for those guys in the points that it really makes that decision extremely tough," Elliott said. "It can make or break your day, right? If you have a shot to win the event, there’s no way you’re going to be able to take the points. Certainly not in the second stage and probably not in the first stage with this car. If you think you have a shot to win and you short those stages and you give up all your stage points then you have a late-race caution or a restart doesn’t go your way and you lose the race and now you’ve got no stage points and you didn’t get the win, you could be in big trouble. It makes for tough decisions."
With three wins in the five races at the Charlotte ROVAL, the Concord, North Carolina-based team is the winningest team at the 17-turn layout. In total, the organization has 27 wins on road courses, which is the best mark among all teams in the series.
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In the last nine 2023 Cup Series races, the organization has had at least one driver finish in the top five. This is the longest such streak in the series this season. Those top fives came at Michigan International Speedway (Larson), the Indianapolis Road Course (Elliott and Bowman), Watkins Glen (Byron), Daytona International Speedway (Elliott), Darlington Raceway (Larson and Byron), Kansas Speedway (Larson), Bristol Motor Speedway (Larson), Texas (Byron) and Talladega Superspeedway (Byron).
Catch all the action from the Charlotte ROVAL on Sunday, Oct. 8, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, NBC Sports App, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).