It is universally known that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not a fan of road course racing. However, he surprised everyone recently when he suggested adding a road course venue to the zMAX CARS Tour. While Dale Jr. did change his mind, Austin Cindric was having none of it, as he supported the removal of road course Roval from the NASCAR calendar.
Cup driver agrees with NASCAR
Austin Cindric of Team Penske recently sat with News 5 Podcasts, where he shed light on the recently removed tracks on the NASCAR calendar. During the discussion, Cindric admitted that he had no emotional connection with the tracks and hailed the decision as “great.”
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“Yeah, I think that is the only thing like you look at the Chase and you’re like, “Okay, this is a snapshot of our year.” you know, it probably does deserve, you know, a road course race in the future. You know, I don’t feel like I have any like emotional ties to the Roval being off the schedule. So, you know, I think the Charlotte Oval has been one of our one of our best race venues. So, I think from a sports standpoint, I think that’s great.”
With this, the #2 driver mentioned that he was excited to get back to the Oval, the original track that was there before the change. “I think it’s great that we’re going back to the oval.”
“Just because, you know, it’s been that’s why the Roval came up in the first place is because that the oval track, the mile and a half track wasn’t producing good racing and now it’s back to producing good racing. Why do anything different? So, I think it’s a win. I think everybody sees it that way,” he further added.
Coming into 2026, NASCAR removed three race tracks from its 2025 season, and the Roval was one of them. The date goes 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 shifted the Concord, North Carolina venue to its interior road course in 2018, the track got a rename “Roval.” Since then, the Roval has been on the calendar every year until 2026.
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Notably, the race will not take place at the Roval, instead it will take place at the Oval, the bigger version of the track. Experts say that 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 the Naval Base Coronado and the 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 honest take on changed championship format
On January 12, NASCAR changed the old playoff-style championship to bring back the Chase format in the championship. Earlier, the drivers needed to win a race in the regular season to qualify for the playoffs.
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From then on, the drivers fought 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 each race is going to be important going forward, something Dale Jr. pointed out during one of his conversations.
“This format makes it more critical,” Dale Jr. said. “There’s no more ‘win, and you’re in, ‘ you have to work all year long. As a fan, I want to be drawn into the broadcast every week. I want to get up in the morning knowing I can’t miss the race.”
This is not the first time NASCAR introduced this system, as it followed the same system from the 2004 Cup Series season until the 2013 season. With that said, it will be interesting to see how drivers cope with this system.
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