This weekend, the NASCAR traveling carnival made it's annual October stop at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Bank of America 500. It was the 30th race of the season, fourth race of the Chase and first of the Contender Round.
Austin Dillon was on fire at Charlotte Motor Speedway; at one point, literally. Dillon qualified on the pole for Friday's Drive for the Cure 300 by edging fellow cup driver Kasey Kahne with a speed of 183.524 mph. During pre-race activities, one of the fireworks that were set off, misfired and landed on Dillon and his car, burning his fire suit.
Kyle Busch topped the charts in the final practice session. The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was the fastest with a time of 28.518 and a speed of 189.354 mph.
Kurt Busch led the way during the second practice session at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The driver of the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Chevrolet posted a lap of 28.606 and a speed of 188.772 mph to top the charts in the second Sprint Cup Series practice.
Today on the Sirius XM program "Tradin' Paint," NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France joined Jim Noble and Danny "Chocolate" Myers to discuss the concerns Jack Roush brought up about moving to a franchise ownership model.
The motto for the 24 team in the Challenger Round struck me as simply "survive and advance." While he had a dominant car at Chicagoland, he was a 10th-place car at best in Loudon and Dover. Now that Gordon has moved on to the Contender Round, he'll find the track lineup of Charlotte, Kansas and Talladega to his advantage.
The penalty rundown is light this week with a P2 penalty being handed to the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team. All that resulted from it was Cole Pearn being placed on probation until Dec. 31.
