CONCORD, N.C. — The Charlotte Roval is a familiar venue for NASCAR Cup Series drivers, but they saw a different version on Saturday during practice and qualifying. This was less road course and more ice rink.
Videos by FanBuzz
"If it's like this tomorrow, it's going to be crazy to watch," AJ Allmendinger said. "So everybody at home, you're going to have fun watching. I don't know if we're going to have fun."
Drivers saw extensive tire falloff and much slower lap times than they expected on Saturday afternoon. Instead of focusing on lap times, they had to work on keeping their cars pointed in the right direction. No one wanted to make a mistake that would send them to a backup car and the rear of the field.
"It's been a super tricky day, super different, at least a lot further off than I thought the tire was gonna be," Austin Cindric said after qualifying 19th. "I definitely felt like we were gonna lose a little bit of grip there, but not that much."
Take a ride around the @CLTMotorSpdwy ROVAL with @TyGibbs. pic.twitter.com/kct5IOQeeg
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 4, 2025
Cindric continued and said that in past seasons, the pole speed was around 82 seconds. This year, Tyler Reddick won the pole with a lap of 85.939 seconds. Other drivers completed laps in 86 and 87 seconds.
"So that's a lot slower, and then talk about the fall off," Cindric said. "I mean, we've had some fall off with this tire, but not quite like that, so I would say it's just been very much to the extreme of what we've experienced with this tire change
"You think about it, this racetrack, the Roval, has had a specific tire for this event - Xfinity, Trucks, Cup - the first time we came here, ever since, until now. Now we're running on the same tire as all the other events, so I think it definitely highlights some of the specific challenges of this racetrack versus others."
Cindric is far from the only driver left perplexed by the tire falloff and slickness of the track. Kyle Busch told truTV during practice that they had the wrong tire. Ryan Blaney said the game would revolve around which driver had "a little bit more" of the less grip.
Allmendinger, who led the field in practice, told truTV that the track was "way different" than it's ever been. He said the lap times were three seconds off of the simulator and that it felt like the tires were gone after only half of a lap.
"I'm going to have to figure it out, but I wasn't ready for it to be that slick," Allmendinger said. "I was kind of shocked. I ran my first lap and I was like 'wow, that is quite off, you're terrible.' And I looked up the board and saw P1 — interesting."
Photo credit: Nigel Kinrade Photography
The interesting thing about this tire conundrum is that select drivers have seen this extensive falloff in the past. It just occurred during a testing session at Watkins Glen International.
As Reddick said in response to a question from FanBuzz, the falloff and cording did not translate from the test at Watkins Glen to the actual road course races this season. Yet, for some reason, it returned on Saturday afternoon at the Charlotte Roval.
"So yeah, the way it acted today was somewhat reminiscent of that test, but obviously, when we returned to race, it was much different," Reddick said. "It wasn't — you had some fall off — but it wasn't rubbering the whole track in, kind of like it was.
"So, yeah, this is, I guess more in line with what I expected this tire to do, at a lot of the racetracks we go to, when I participated in that tire test, but it had just hasn't done it quite to this level until today."
Will this increased tire wear be the story of Sunday afternoon's Cup Series race? The drivers do not have this answer, which creates some concerns. This is not ideal for several in the field considering what is at stake.
Twelve drivers will enter the Roval race. Eight will advance to the next round of the playoffs. Blaney and Chase Elliott have already punched their tickets with wins, but the rest of the playoff drivers still have points and wins to pursue.
The Roval is already a breeding ground for chaos. Now, the drivers have to worry about unexpected tire wear.
