CONCORD, N.C. – This Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a successful day on the “roval” is all that lies between the three Hendrick Motorsports teammates in the playoffs and advancing to the next round.
An up-and-down day at Richmond Raceway last weekend saw Chase Elliott finish 13th, with Alex Bowman and William Byron finishing back-to-back in 23rd and 24th, respectively.
Now, with one race remaining in the Round of 16, Bowman and Byron are back-to-back in the playoff standings.
Elliott leads the way for the organization at seventh in the standings, 37 points above the cut line. Byron currently sits 12th, with Bowman two points back in 13th.
“We just move on from here and move on to the ‘roval,’” Byron said. “I think we have a good shot there to have a good result and hopefully compete for a top-five or something like that would be nice. I'm really optimistic about that with how we've run at the road courses and hopefully that will work out for us."
To Byron’s point, Hendrick Motorsports has won both of the last two trips to Watkins Glen, raced inside the top 10 for much of this year’s trip to Sonoma and earned three top-10 finishes at the Charlotte road course last season.
Bowman is looking at last year’s “roval” success for inspiration this weekend as well.
“We qualified third and ran fourth there last year,” he recalled. “So, we just have to get stage points and have a good day all day. If we don't make the next round, we don't really deserve to be there with how we are running right now. It's definitely a bummer, but we have to get our stuff together.”
Following this weekend’s race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, four drivers will be eliminated as 12 advance to the next round.
Though both Byron and Bowman are on the edge of that cut line as the last car in and last car out in the current standings, they know there’s still one race to go to improve their positions.
“It’s just great to have a shot,” Byron said. “It’s just great to be even on the upside of it. And, I think if we can do that, I’m really optimistic for what we can do going forward. We’re just really fortunate to have another shot after a night like (Saturday at Richmond) and we can go forward and see what we have.”