CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Elevation changes, blind turns — a course that blends the speed of a speedway with the chicanes and right turns and elevation changes of a road course.
The Roval.
The NASCAR Cup Series arrives to the transformed Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday at 2 p.m. Sunday will thus mark the last road course the Next Gen car will have to endure this season, and the first time the Next Gen car will run on the 17-turn, 2.28-mile Roval.
The Charlotte Observer’s Alex Zietlow spoke with NBC analyst and former Cup star Jeff Burton ahead of the race — and Burton discusses what he thought of the track when the idea was first floated, what he enjoys about the course and how he thinks the Next Gen car will stack up.
Here’s the interview, edited for clarity and brevity.
NASCAR's Jeff Rurton on life at the Roval
— Zietlow: The first Cup race at the Roval was in 2018. What was the prevailing thought among fans, among drivers, when it was announced that it was Charlotte Motor Speedway would transform into this road course thing?
— Burton: I think in general, the fans were thinking, “What? What were we doing?” A bit of confusion. A bit of surprise. Probably a fair amount of skepticism. Which I think would go along the same way that the competitors were thinking as well. You’ve been racing in this facility for so long. And now we’re going to do what? And you just couldn’t, you just couldn’t picture what it would be like? Like how is this going to work? There were so many questions and unknowns, and it was so out-of-the-box it surprised a lot of people.
Including me. I was like, “Wait, wh- what?” (Laughs.) Initially, I thought it was crazy. I actually went over there to meet with (Speedway Motorsports CEO) Marcus (Smith) to tell him he was nuts and that he shouldn’t do it. This was before it went public. This was being thought about.
We had a car over there, and we went and made some laps. And after that I went, “This might work. This actually might work.” Yeah, I changed my tune. I just couldn’t fathom it until I got out there. I had some preconceived notions that were wrong about what the track could be. I immediately recognized that it was going to be really difficult, which I’m all about. I like difficult. To be blunt, the mile and a half racing wasn’t very good, not as good of a product as the fans deserved, and so, yeah, I quickly became a supporter of it.
— Zietlow: And the race was exciting.
— Burton: Oh hell yeah! It was a crazy race. And there were some things that weren’t right with the track. They had to make some adjustments during the week, or during practice, which led to the “we shouldn’t be doing it” (contingent), right? And then those changes were made. And then you had this crazy race, piling into Turn 1, a bunch of cars missing Turn 1, it was nuts.
— Zietlow: OK, so coming out of pit road, can you go through Turns 1, 2, 3 and 4 for me? Like what are the challenges?
— Burton: So Turn 1, visually, is difficult because you don’t have a sense of where the corner starts and where it ends like you normally would. Because there’s not a wall. Like there is a wall, but it’s just a different look for a racetrack because you’re leaving the tri-oval, you’re hanging a left, a very tight corner. It’s, you know, it’s just a difficult corner. And then, as you approach Turn 2, you have a pretty big elevation change. Then you start downhill into 3, and that downhill portion into 3, we’ve seen a lot of accidents there because you’re breaking while you go downhill. And that tends to upset the car some. And then that’s not as tight a corner as you would think — there’s some runoff, there’s some space to go — but it’s a very difficult corner. ... And then on top of that, the whole infield section is a really low-grip part of the racetrack. The racetrack has very little grip, much less than you would think.
This sounds stupid, but you’re at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and you’ve got high speed and all that stuff on your mind, on the front straight away, but you approach Turn 1 and that whole infield section, you gotta change gears.
— Zietlow: So what about 5, 6, 7 and 8.
— Burton: So 5, when you go into 5, you immediately start this uphill elevation change, which is bizarre. Who knew there would be an elevation change in the infield of Charlotte Motor Speedway. So you start uphill. And then when you’re making the right into 6, you can’t see the exit of 6. Like, you can’t see down there. So you can’t see 7. The wall on the right of 6 is kind of your reference of where the car needs to be to set the corner up correctly. ...
And then you have the downhill elevation change, and then I think one of the most difficult corners is the one that leads onto “oval Turn 1” (Turn 7). It’s really odd transition, it’s a banking change. It’s a very difficult corner, and it’s a very important corner because if you don’t do it right, you lead with not enough speed onto the fastest part of the racetrack, and with a passing zone in the inner loop. You pay a price for not doing it right, because that is a great passing zone. ...
And then you got those turtles (chicanes) there, the curving there, and of course it leads to oval 3 and 4 (Roval Turns 13 & 14), so again, if you don’t do that inner loop right, then that leads to another high speed part of the racetrack where you can be passed. ... And then (Turns 15 and 16) are crazy because you’re heavy on braking, you have a transition from banking angles. It is a really hard breaking zone. We see a lot of break lockup there because the car is loaded on one tire more than it is the other... And it’s really narrow and really tight on the exit. Getting there is really wide and OK, but once you get that right to start that complex, it gets really narrow.
And of course it leads to the start-finish line (Laughs.) ...
I think Darlington is the most difficult racetrack on the circuit, and I think this is the second-most difficult.
— Zietlow: How do you think the Next Gen car is going to perform? And how do you think the drivers will feel in them?
— Burton: I think that the way this track is laid out, it may offer with the Next Gen car more passing opportunities than we’ve seen with the other road courses. It’ll be really interesting to see. I know that for sure that the competition is going to be intense. There’s so much on the line. The competition has been intense all year. And we’ve seen the races at the Roval be a notch above from an intensity standpoint than the other road courses. And I have no reason to believe that that’s going to change. So I expect an intense race. I expect to have no idea what’s going to happen.
It’s been like that all year, and there’s going to be no reason to believe that it’s going to be any different now.
