The points battle to watch in Charlotte elimination race

Leaving Kansas, there are six drivers feeling comfortable in their playoff position with 40+ points between themselves and the dreaded elimination zone.

Joey Logano and Ross Chastain are not among them, and all eyes will be on these two next weekend at the Charlotte ROVAL.

Logano lost 11 points on the cutline after a tumultuous weekend, and is now just 13 points ahead. Chastain actually lost a point from -12 to -13, but the driver he’s chasing has shifted from Chase Briscoe to Logano. Briscoe is now at +21, so certainly not out of the woods yet either.

There are three other drivers below the cutline as well, but they are a bit further back than Chastain. After a heartbreaking loss on Sunday, Bubba Wallace is now 26 points back, his 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick is 29 points behind, and Austin Cindric is essentially in a must-win situation at 48 points down.

However, we’re going to focus on just two drivers here, and the 13 points that separate Chastain and Logano — a margin that could be mostly erased in a single stage. Both of these drivers will be hyper-fixated on stage points at Charlotte, but which one has the upper-hand when it comes to turning both left and right?

While Chastain earned his first career Cup win (COTA 2022) and his most recent Cup pole (Watkins Glen 2024) on a road course, Logano hasn’t won at a road course in over a decade (Watkins Glen 2015). Regardless of that, these are two of the most aggressive drivers on the grid, so you can be certain that both of them will be doing whatever they can to get their cars to the front this weekend.

Chastain has a slight edge at road/street courses in 2025

There have been five road/street courses run so far this year, and while Chastain has outscored Logano in four of them, only once did he manage to gain 13 points on the three-time champion (Mexico City). 

Chastain is averaging a finish of 14.4 at such events this year, while Logano is at 15.8, so there’s not that much difference in the final finishing result either.

Where Chastain could really find an advantage is qualifying, especially with the short 25-lap stages at the ROVAL. The Trackhouse driver has an average starting position of 8.4 at road/street courses this year with three starts inside the top five, while Logano is at 15.4 and has not qualified higher than ninth. 

It appears to be advantage Chastain, but again, he’s going to have to do more than that to make up the current difference. As of right now, Logano wins the tiebreaker (which is best finish in the round) with his fourth-place finish at New Hampshire, so he actually needs 14 points.

Logano better at the ROVAL overall

Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet; Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford

Photo by: Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

And while Logano is no road course king, the stats suddenly shift into his favor if we only look at the ROVAL in recent years. In 2024, Logano finished eighth and placed second in both stages. Chastain scored 38 fewer points as he placed 28th after getting collected in some mid-race incidents.

It’s worth noting that Chastain wasn’t in the playoffs last year and wasn’t really concerned with scoring stage points in that race, but it was the opposite in 2023 with Chastain trying to escape elimination while Logano was no longer part of the title fight. On that day, Chastain scored eight more points than him. Even still, Logano finished fifth while Chastain was in tenth.

The first race of the Next Gen era at the ROVAL was in 2022. In this situation, both were points racing as part of the playoffs. Logano went out and won Stage 1 and Chastain actually won Stage 2, but the Trackhouse driver ended up hitting the wall and finishing 37th, several laps down. Logano ended up 18th, and obviously outscored him there. These two drivers actually went on to finish 1-2 in the championship standings that year, with Logano taking the crown.

So, recent history says that Chastain will gain ground, but he’ll need to find some more, especially since Logano has finished higher than Chastain in the last three ROVAL races.

But if Chastain were to have a secret weapon, then it would be his Kiwi teammate in the No. 88 car. There’s no doubt that Chastain will spend this upcoming race week working closely with teammate Shane van Gisbergen, a road course ace unlike any NASCAR has seen before. He has won the last four consecutive road/street course races, and is the defending pole-sitter at the ROVAL. Chastain will need to lean heavily on the three-time Supercar champ as he tries to bridge the gap between himself and the stealthily consistent Penske No. 22.

Logano vs. Chastain on road/street courses in 2025