Matt DiBenedetto’s persistence and determination to better his own situation ultimately paid off on Wednesday with the announcement that he will join Leavine Family Racing next season.

If the day that Furniture Row Racing team owner Barney Visser announced he’d be closing his team was the worst day of the year for Toyota, Wednesday’s addition of Leavine Family Racing was one of the manufacturer’s proudest in the last eight months.

Matt DiBenedetto has found his next home in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, while Leavine Family Racing will fly a new manufacturer flag next season.

After gathering feedback from drivers, a NASCAR official has confirmed that the driver-adjustable track bar will be eliminated starting next season.

Perhaps the most underappreciated of all the surprises from the end of Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was Jamie McMurray’s runner-up finish in the No. 1 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing.

As Alex Bowman slipped through the final-corner chaos that saw his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. crash while racing for the win on Sunday, he had a fleeting thought coming to the checkered flag.

Marcus Smith knew from the start that he was stepping out on a limb by changing Charlotte Motor Speedway’s annual fall race weekend from the oval-track configuration to the facility’s revamped infield road course layout.

Kyle Larson finally found the good luck he’d been hoping for all weekend long during the final moments of the Bank of America ROVAL 400, even if it didn’t appear that way at first.

Sunday afternoon, the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL both lived up to the hype and proved that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

The old adage “there are two sides to every story” was proven true in full force at the end of Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400, with Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. on opposite sides of the last-turn collision that took them both out of contention for the victory.