CONCORD, N.C. _ It took a while, but boy did we ever get that Roval wreck-fest we were promised.
The inaugural Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was hailed as one of the more unpredictable, chaotic races in recent NASCAR Cup Series history, and for good reason.
The half-oval, half-road course track, with all its tight turns and blind corners and narrow lanes, was something unlike anything else these drivers will face all season, especially unlike anything else they'll face in the playoffs.
But for the first 103 of 109 laps, that wasn't how the race played out.
Coming off a late restart, Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski had only been managing their fuel mileage and trying to outlast one another to the end.
Then, chaos.
Keselowski's brakes failed him in Turn 1, and as he went careening into the wall, Larson went with him. From there, it was like a metal wall plopped down in the middle of a narrow road _ and nobody was getting through.
Seemingly every car sustained damage or was destroyed completely in the mess, not to mention the wall itself, prompting NASCAR to drop the red flag and stop the race.
When the racing finally resumed, Keselowski was unable to finish, leaving Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson left in a six-lap shootout for the first Roval win.
Ultimately Johnson tried to pass Truex in the last trip through the front-stretch chicane, spinning out both, and leaving Ryan Blaney wide open to cruise in to win his first race this season.
Meanwhile, in the first playoff cutdown race, the only real playoff drama was for the last spot. Austin Dillon crashed out relatively early and knocked himself out of the playoffs, and Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin were too far back without a victory to have a chance at advancing.
Larson, with a severely damaged race car, limped to the finish, passing the crashed car of Jeffrey Earnhardt just short of the start-finish line. That put him into a three-way tiebreaker for two spots with Aric Almirola and Johnson.
A seven-time NASCAR champion, Johnson lost out, seeing his hopes for an eighth title end for this season.
