Each year that it makes up the subsequent year’s schedule, it’s pretty clear NASCAR wants to have all types of tracks before a champion is crowned: short tracks, mile-and-a-halfs, superspeedways, and road courses; the latter two being wildcard racetracks.
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In the Round of Eight, we’ll have arguably the biggest wildcard of the playoffs at Talladega in a little over a week from now. And this past Sunday, we had the only road course in the playoffs at the Charlotte Roval.
Denny Hamlin understands why NASCAR likes to mix things up with an event like what we just had at the Roval.
“Let me give you the facts” Hamlin said on this week’s edition of his Actions Detrimental podcast. “It is SMI’s (Speedway Motorsports Inc.’s race) date. They own that date. It is a playoff race.
“(NASCAR wants) a road course to be in the playoffs,” Hamlin said. “I don’t think they care what, when, or how. So, they want a road course in the playoffs. It’s SMI’s date. I don’t know that (SMI has) a choice but to run the Roval.”
SMI does have one other option: it owns Sonoma Raceway north of San Francisco, where it usually races in mid-to-late June, but it’s unlikely the company wants to take away a race from Charlotte.
“I think that the mile-and-a-half’s are just the best product that we have. The road courses have proven to be very difficult on this (Next Generation) car. It’s difficult to pass in this car. Any one lane racetrack, this car just can’t do it because the aerodynamic properties of it, it’s just not good in traffic. You have to have multi-lanes to move around.
“(The) Charlotte oval is a multi-lane of multi-lane racetracks. It’s a little baby Kansas. The right thing to do is to put us on the oval. NASCAR would either have to say it’s fine not having a road course in the playoffs. I don’t know that anyone is clamoring for a road course to have to be in the playoffs. I mean, we are a stock car series.
“Typically for the bulk of my career, we ran two road courses a year. None of them were at the end of the season. That’s the way it always used to be. But I also understand the logic of you want to crown someone that’s good at all tracks.”
Will the Roval still be back in 2026? Right now, it’s on the NASCAR schedule. But that doesn’t mean the sanctioning body and SMI still can decide to shift back to the oval, which hosts the longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600, on the Memorial Day Weekend.
“Someone has to give,” Hamlin said. “Either NASCAR has to give on the schedule and say, ‘Do we really have to have a road course in the final 10? Yes or no?’ The answer is probably no. that you don’t have to.
“I believe that if SMI and or NASCAR wants an instant bump in ratings and in ticket sales in 2026, they announce we’re going to be in Charlotte in October, but we’re going to be racing left turns. I think your fan sentiment would go up.”
NASCAR’s desire to maintain variety in its postseason makes sense from a competition standpoint, but the Next Gen car’s limitations on tight, single-lane road courses have made passing, and therefore excitement, harder to come by.
If the goal is to ensure the playoffs feature the best product possible, Hamlin believes the answer lies on the traditional oval, not the infield twists of the Roval. His take is clear: stock cars should primarily race on ovals, especially when a championship is at stake.
