Shane van Gisbergen won for the fifth time this NASCAR Cup Series season at the Charlotte Roval, but another SVG road course win was not the story on Oct. 5.
Joey Logano survived, getting into the Round of 8 after Ross Chastain was eliminated from the playoffs when he lost five spots on the final lap, mostly due to a spin through the final turn on a hasty move.
Chastain, Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick were eliminated after the Charlotte Roval cutoff race.
Logano joins Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell in the Round of 8. One of them will be the 2025 Cup Series champion.
Here are the winners and losers from the NASCAR Charlotte Roval race in North Carolina:
NASCAR Charlotte Roval winners and losers: Joey Logano survives the Roval to advance to the Round of 8
So is the NASCAR playoff system in 2025 that a 20th-place finisher is the headliner in an October race.
Logano, not the best road-course racer, went into the weekend with a 13-point cushion to the playoff cutline and ninth-place Chastain.
The No. 22 Ford lost 10 points to Chastain through the first two stages, and Logano never really threatened the top 10 in the final laps. But a pair of Chastain pit-road issues helped Logano stay in the game.
Logano hasn’t been in championship form yet in these playoffs, but doubt the No. 22 team at your peril.
Larson can be hot and cold on road courses; he was hot at the Charlotte Roval.
The driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet led 27 laps before finishing second to van Gisbergen.
Larson, who had substandard results in the summer months, had finishes of seventh (Loudon) and sixth (Kansas) in the Round of 12. Don’t discount him in the next round, starting next week in Las Vegas.
Chastain was between a rock and a hard place (read: between Logano and worn-out tires) in the final laps.
The No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet driver slipped down the leaderboard, from 16th to 17th to 18th before a final-turn dive-bomb gone awry on Denny Hamlin for a position he had to have to advance to the Round of 8.
Chastain dove into the frontstretch curves way too fast and spun both himself and Hamlin for position.
It didn’t work, as both drivers lost several spots before crossing the finish line. (Chastain, naturally, crossed the line backward.)
So Chastain is out of the playoffs at the Round of 12, and he rarely had been in winning contention in 2025. The No. 1 led just 72 laps this season, by far the lowest number in the past four seasons. After that sterling 2022 season, Chastain just hasn’t become the consistent championship contender that most expected.
Cindric exits the 2025 playoffs still not on the same competitive level as his teammates.
The driver of the No. 2 car had contact with Carson Hocevar early in Stage 2 and broke a toe link, putting his already long odds of advancing out of reach en route to a 36th-place finish.
Cindric, 27, has won one race in three of the four seasons to reach the playoffs in those years. But his average finish of 20.5 and his two top-5 finishes in 32 races in 2025 are below his rookie-year numbers.
The 2020 Xfinity Series champion is a fine third driver for a good team and has his best seasons ahead of him. But Penske is an organization that should have a championship contender in each full-time ride, and Cindric is not that yet.
