It is universally known that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not a fan of road racing. However, he surprised everyone recently when he suggested adding a road racing venue to the zMAX CARS Tour. While Dale Jr. had a change of heart, Austin Cindric was having none of it, as he supported removing the Roval road course from the NASCAR schedule.
Cup driver agrees with NASCAR
Austin Cindric of Team Penske recently sitting down with News 5 Podcastswhere he shed light on tracks recently removed from the NASCAR schedule. During the discussion, Cindric admitted he had no emotional connection to the tracks and hailed the decision as “brilliant.”
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“Yeah, I think it’s the one thing you look at at the Chase and you’re like, ‘Okay, this is a snapshot of our year.’ you know, this probably deserves, you know, a road race in the future. You know, I don’t feel like I have an emotional connection to the Roval being out of the program. So, you know, I think the Charlotte Oval has been one of our best racing venues. So, I think from a sporting point of view, I think it’s great.
With that, the No. 2 driver mentioned that he was excited to return to the Oval, the original track that was there before the change. “I think it’s great that we’re getting back on the oval.”
“Just because, you know, that’s the reason why the Roval was created in the first place, is because the oval track, the mile-and-a-half track wasn’t producing good racing and now it’s starting to produce good racing again. Why do anything different? So, I think it’s a win. I think everyone sees it that way,” he added.
Starting in 2026, NASCAR removed three race tracks from its 2025 season, and the Roval was one of them. The date dates back to 1960 to 2017, when Charlotte Motor Speedway hosted two races per year, except for 2018, when it hosted four races.
October 5, 2025, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA: SHANE VAN GISBERGEN driving the 88 Weather Tech Chevrolet in the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway Charlotte USA
However, after NASCAR moved the venue from Concord, North Carolina to its inland road course in 2018, the track was renamed “Roval”. Since then, the Roval has appeared on the calendar every year until 2026.
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Notably, the race will not take place at the Roval, but at the Oval, the larger version of the track. Experts say NASCAR made the decision following its decision to move away from the playoff system and bring back the Chase format.
Besides the Roval, NASCAR also removed the Mexican track, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez and the Chicago Street race. NASCAR replaced them with Naval Base Coronado and Chicagoland Speedway.
Interestingly, along with this, NASCAR also replaced the old playoff system with the Chase format, something Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomed with open arms.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his honest perspective on the championship format change
On January 12, NASCAR changed the old playoff-style championship to return the Chase format to the championship. Previously, drivers had to win a race in the regular season to qualify for the playoffs.
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From then on, the drivers fight for the title in an elimination format. However, under the Chase format, the top 10 drivers from the regular season will compete for the title. This shows how important every race will be in the future, something Dale Jr. emphasized during one of his conversations.
“This format makes things more critical,” Dale Jr. said. “There’s no more ‘win, and you’re in,’ you have to work all year. As a fan, I want to be involved in the show every week. I want to get up in the morning knowing I can’t miss the race.”
This is not the first time that NASCAR has introduced this system, as it has followed the same system since the 2004 Cup Series season through the 2013 season. That said, it will be interesting to see how drivers handle this system.
