More NASCAR ROVAL races at other tracks? Marcus Smith says no

The ROVAL was some quality NASCAR innovation, but probably not a look into the sport’s future.

NASCAR, like most pro sports, can be a bit of a copycat business. Crew chiefs, race teams, even tracks all keep an eye on what their competitors are doing and aren’t opposed to “borrowing” good ideas and putting their own spin on them. So naturally, with just about everyone declaring the race on Charlotte’s unique road course/oval hybrid layout, we’re about to be up to our eyeballs in ROVAL clones, right?

Maybe not.

Marcus Smith, president and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) doesn’t expect to see any of his company’s other seven tracks try to emulate the ROVAL blueprint, preferring it to stay a Charlotte Motor Speedway original.

Why? As he explained to Autoweek, it’s because too much of the same thing — Smith referenced both 1.5-mile ovals and lights at tracks for night racing — is actually too much.

“I think that we could learn from that past to see what might help us going forward, so certainly I’m not looking at any of our properties to add a road course,” Smith said.

That’s some admirable restraint, but it doesn’t mean that all other tracks wouldn’t consider a ROVAL experiment of their own. Take Pocono Raceway, for instance. The Pennsylvania venue has two NASCAR race weekends fairly close together on the schedule without much to distinguish one from the other. It also already has a road course in its infield which could be incorporated into a ROVAL.

Thus, even if SMI stands firm, other venues could still try to steal some of their thunder. What Smith said they might try is a night race on the ROVAL, to which we think we can say we speak for everyone when we say, “Yes please.”