NASCAR drivers have never unloaded at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval with the expectation of a traditional style road course competition but the new layout has most of them already collectively rolling their figurative eyes.
Or in the words of Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 crew chief Chris Gabehart.
“We’re off to the new look Roval to see whatever the Smith family has dreamt up for us this time.”
The layout used over the past six years produced chaos too, of course, but the general consensus was that the tight confines of the course just didn’t produce enough passing zones. So instead, Speedway Motorsports created a pair what objectively looks like crashing zones instead.
The biggest difference is the infield road course portion which now has what is being articulated as a ramp in Turn 5, a high-speed downhill corkscrew, where cars have launched off all four wheels during simulator sessions.
“I’ve just run it at the sim, but yeah, Turn 6 is like 100 percent blind,” said Alex Bowman over the weekend in Talladega. “You can’t see it until you’re there, which is pretty interesting. At least in the sim, your lift mark is before you can see the corner, so that’s definitely different.”
That rolls into a downhill straightaway which leads to a new look, slow hard left Turn 7, which will require drivers to basically come to a stop to make the corner.
“And Turn 7 is like making a U-turn on a one-way street, so it’s going to be chaos, for sure,” Bowman added.
The other change came on the frontstretch chicane, which is now a little tighter, which is remarkable given how tight it already was and has encouraged late divebombs for over the last half decade.
Denny Hamlin summed the changes up succinctly during his own press conference at Talladega.
“I think it’s set up for chaos, truthfully,” Hamlin said. “I think that they were very strategic, making sure to put us to a decision what might be fast, the normal racing line will be fast, but there will be an option to short cut it and just wipe out whoever is in front of you.
“Whatever reason would we have changed it — other than to create more chaos and things like that? I certainly think it’ll be that way.”
Xfinity Series regular Riley Herbst was also incredibly candid.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen it but they’ve taken a really bad race track and made it worse,” Herbst said. “That’s not good English but that’s how I feel about it. I’d feel better if it were the old layout but the new Turn 7 is dismal.”
Kyle Larson says Speedway Motorsports has accomplished both of its goals with the new look Turns 5, 6 and 7.
“I definitely think it’s a potential passing and chaos area,” Larson said with a bit of a chuckle. “I did some sim for about 30 minutes and that corner is extremely tight. You have to slow down a lot and open up your radius because it’s so tight.
“It’s coming off the right hander so it’s going to be really easy to pop out and shove your nose in there on somebody. So yeah, I think it’s definitely going to be a passing opportunity but also for sure some chaos and parked cars.”
Chase Briscoe has won at the Roval in the Xfinity Series and has even advanced into the Round of 8 through this track in his previous playoff run back in 2022 and he is generally a fan of the track, but when asked if Turns 5, 6 and 7 was intimidating, he didn’t shy away from that either.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize that the right hander that we have now is completely off camber,” Briscoe said. “It is five, six, seven degrees the opposite banking so that’s going to be an extremely challenging corner. There isn’t any room for run off because if you do, you’re in the grass and plugging it into the fence.
“I think its going to be chaos over there, especially the way this NextGen car is, because we don’t go anywhere with these big elevation changes anymore. I think it is going to be tricky.”
Does he actually think the cars will ramp?
“Yeah, I do,” Briscoe said. “Depending on how Dukes of Hazzard you want to be with your car in qualifying especially, you’re going to get some air.
“The problem is, at least in the sim, is where you need to start braking is also where you land. I don’t know. There are going to be a lot of different ways to approach that whole section and someone is going to figure it out the best.”
So chaos?
“Chaos,” Briscoe affirmed. “They added two more hard braking zones between the new corner that runs into the big oval and then the frontstretch chicane is going to be way heavier on braking and the restarts are going to be really, really, bad truthfully.
“That turn was already narrow and now it’s going to be even more narrower. It wouldn’t surprise me if we change the restart zone for the Cup race after they see it in the Xfinity race, truthfully.”
Hamlin didn’t mince words during his podcast on Monday either.
“The reconfigure was designed to create more chaos,” Hamlin said. “You’re gonna have to convince me otherwise. They made the corners sharper and tighter. …Instead of you driving the normal optimal line to make this corner (on Turn 7) that is really really tight, tighter than the Coliseum, they made it a point so they want you to drive straight in the corner… I don’t know why we changed it. There’s a blind spot when you go through 5 to 6 like you go over a rise and your car gets really high.
“…We get to experience this Roval config. I don’t know what else to say about it other than try to qualify and try to avoid the wrecks. This is what we are now folks. …This is the avenue we’re choosing. Is it making for more viewers or not? I don’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. We got a great oval that’s at that racetrack. While I’m walking around that roval, I’m looking at the banks of the oval thinking, ‘Man it’d be awesome to run on that racetrack.'”
Regardless of how anyone feels about it, Chase Elliott says this is a completely different race track now and the simular work only goes so far anyway.
‘To me, I kind of look at it like it’s a new race track, truthfully,” said Elliott. “The infield section of the track is going to change the entire flow of the lap there, so I’ve been kind of approaching it as a new track with my preparation. I’ve spent some time in the simulator, just trying to really memorize the track and where the little bumps are. Typically, those track scans are pretty good. I think that’s probably one of the best things about the simulator is that a driver can go and get familiar with the track layout, surface content, roughness, so on and so forth.”
‘It’s really about all I feel like I can do until we get some time on track. Obviously, we have extra practice next week, so hopefully that’s enough to find a good rhythm and get a good flow for qualifying and then obviously for the race.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.