By Zach Arnold

The Roval always provides an action-packed, edge-of-your-seat, nailbiter race. Sunday’s race was no different, beginning with 23XI Racing Toyotas bringing the Cup Series field to the green flag; Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace won the front row during qualifying on Saturday.

Reddick cleared his teammate on the first lap and led all of stage one. The No. 45 team was in a tricky position, as the crew entered the race below the playoff cutline only by a few points. They had to decide if they were going to race for stage points or go for the win, and they chose points. Five other playoff drivers were able to earn stage points in stage one: Wallace, Ross Chastain, Martin Truex Jr., Christopher Bell, and Kyle Busch.

On the opposite side, Brad Keselowski ran into early trouble in stage one by cutting the course. He had to complete a stop-and-go penalty due to this. The Roush Fenway Racing team owner would not advance to the next round of the playoffs.

Stage two began with Bell and Daniel Suarez leading the field into turn one. Fan favorite Chase Elliott was able to bring the No. 9 up to second place on the first lap of the stage; he eventually was able to take the lead from Bell on Lap 35. While Elliott was racing for the lead, Kevin Harvick also had to complete a stop-and-go penalty for cutting the course. It was the 47-year-old’s final race at Charlotte; it did not go as he hoped, finishing 19th.

Elliott would go on to lead the rest of stage two, which ended under caution. Josh Bilicki received a bump from Corey Lajoie as he entered a turn too fast; this was the first caution of the race due to an incident.

Denny Hamlin’s race ended early in stage three, he spun twice in the stage. The second spin is what ended his day, he had contact with the wall and the No. 42 of Mike Rockenfeller. This started a train of yellow flags, as Erik Jones brought out the next caution as he spun out and made hard contact with the wall. His day ended there, resulting in a 36th-place finish.

A few laps would go by until the next caution came out, and Suarez spun after contact from the No. 20. Right after this caution, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. brought out the next stoppage, his car went up in flames. Stenhouse was evaluated and released from the infield care center.

Busch needed to win the race to advance to the next round of the playoffs, so this created an intense battle between Busch, Gibbs, and Allmendinger. The No. 16 of Allmendinger was able to prevail.

“I hate crying right now, but it’s a freaking Cup race, man. You don’t know when it’s ever going to happen again. Let’s go!” Allmendinger exclaimed after the race.

The field is set for the round of eight, over the next three weeks these drivers will battle to make the championship four starting at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week. Catch the race on NBC Sports next Sunday, at 2:00 p.m. EST.