Failures of the NextGen Car Continue

Currently, the NextGen car is almost a year and a half into its life as the NASCAR Cup Series chassis. NASCAR implemented the NextGen car as a spec-car for all teams to use from a single source supplier. No longer would teams design, modify, and build their own chassis. Instead, NASCAR would be providing the cars to the teams for the goal of more parity in the sport. In addition to parity, NASCAR pushed the idea that team owners would save money (in the long term). With those long term savings, NASCAR was hoping they could see the addition of new ownership. Plus, NASCAR was hoping that the NextGen car would help bring in a new manufacturer. All of these hopes were pinned to the NextGen car. However, NASCAR is only experiencing the failures of the NextGen car.

To say that the NextGen car has been a complete failure would be a bit unkind (and untrue). Before the short tracks last season, the NextGen car was receiving top marks. Auto Club and Las Vegas demonstrated the cars strengths: intermediate tracks. While tire issues were popping up, everyone more so chalked it up to Goodyear rather than the car itself. Despite the blown tires, fans were pleased with the racing on display. Even after the early fanfare, NASCAR received the parity that they wanted from the NextGen car. Since the start of the 2022 season, there have been 22 different winners from 10 different teams. The average running order of a race seems to vary week to week, with some obvious exceptions for strong and weak teams. As for successes though, that is about it.

When it comes to the failures of the NextGen car, those are been plentiful. A few of the issues have been covered on this website already: short track racing, safety, and general frustration. Despite those previous articles, more needs to be said about how bad the NextGen car truly has been. New issues seemingly arise on a weekly basis at this point. Since the Coca-Cola 600, there have been two significant stories that revolve around the NextGen car. One is the Chase Briscoe/SHR penalty for the counterfeit parts. The other stems from this past weekend where four cars saw their brake rotors fail. Not only did the brake rotors fail, the racing at WWT Raceway was subpar. For the 2023 season, the NextGen car has been putting on more duds than thrillers. NASCAR has an issue that they seemingly do not want to address.

Larger Implications of Briscoe Penalty

After the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR took Chase Briscoe’s car back to their R&D department to do a teardown of the car. Upon inspecting the car, NASCAR found a counterfeit part on the twentieth place car. The illegal part was a duct that runs to the engine panel. According to NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer, the counterfeit part was created to mimic an approved part down to the labeling. Due to this infraction, NASCAR slapped Briscoe with a 120-point penalty, 6 race suspension for crew chief John Klausmeier, and fined the team $250,000.

Briscoe and SHR are only the most recent violators of the sacred NextGen rules. NASCAR has dropped the hammer down on RKF, Front Row, Hendrick Motorsports, and Kaulig Racing. While the louvers penalties for Hendrick and Kaulig were essentially rescinded, NASCAR has been dishing out hefty penalties for L3 violations. NASCAR is attempting to send a clear message: do not mess with the NextGen car and parts. Will NASCAR teams listen?

Attempted Culture Shift

NASCAR has a long history of teams/drivers attempting to circumvent the rules to achieve better results. To quote Richard Petty, “if you ain’t cheating a little, you ain’t likely to win much”. The sport of NASCAR was founded on moonshine runners ramping up their cars to avoid the police. Junior Johnson should be in two Hall of Fames: NASCAR’s and a cheaters Hall of Fame. The notorious Johnson was renown for avoiding (or actively ignoring) the rules whenever and wherever he could. Smokey Yunick essentially wrote the NASCAR rulebook based on his cheating ways. Nothing has changed from that culture in the NASCAR world. NASCAR is fooling themselves if they think NASCAR teams are going to stop trying to shave off hundredths of seconds from their pace even though it is against the rules.

Is NASCAR necessarily in the wrong for these penalties? Absolutely not. They are the sanctioning body. There are rules in place and the teams need to know what happens if they cross the line. NASCAR is trying to even out the playing field so teams like Hendrick Motorsports cannot out budget the other teams to faster race cars. However, NASCAR is simply ignorant if they think teams will change their ways after decades of trying to live on the edge. Despite having to layoff two departments with the introduction of the NextGen car, the teams kept the mentality of “how can we make this car run better for us” by any means possible. There is still R&D happening with these teams.

Notable YouTuber Eric Estepp made comments about how teams are shooting themselves in the foot by still trying to cheat. One of his main points was the hypocrisy of teams complaining about the finances of running a Cup Series while spending money on trying to cheat. While there is a valid logic there, it is the NASCAR way to live on the edge of the rules. Teams are willing to mess around and find out if it might give them an edge. Also, the owners complaining about cost and the cheating is a false equivalency.

 Another Parts Failure

WWT Raceway introduced the latest defect of the NextGen car: breaking brake rotors. During the Enjoy Illinois 300 on Sunday, four drivers experience the failure of their brake rotors: Carson Hocevar, Tyler Reddick, Noah Gragson, and Bubba Wallace. According to the broadcast, the potential reason behind the failures was the cooling off period between turns. WWT Raceway races similar to a short track with heavy braking in the turns. Unlike short tracks though, WWT Raceway has long front and back stretches that allow the rotors to cool off. At a short track like Martinsville, the rotors consistently run hot all race due to the short front and back stretches.

There is no question that WWT Raceway challenges any vehicles in a unique way compared to other tracks. With the long front and back stretches, the cooling off period hurting the rotors does make sense. While it is easy to hate on the NextGen car, maybe it is not the fault of the car here. After all, only four of the thirty-six car field suffered from the issue. In theory, that is fine thinking. Then you realize that this has not been an issue for the Craftsman Truck Series. None of the trucks on Saturday had to leave the race due a broken brake rotor. Based on the commentary on Sunday, the brake rotor issue seems like a design/material one within the NextGen car itself.

Flawed Design

The brake rotor issue on Sunday is another example of the NextGen’s structural flaws. So far with the NextGen car, it has featured a chassis that does not disperse the energy enough away from the driver during a collision, cars that catch fire due foam in the doors, tire issues, and now breaking brake rotors. Truly, this car has been a traveling dumpster fire.

The issues mentioned above usual coincide with an event on track that brings attention to the issue. However, there is a massive design issue that completely undermines what NASCAR was hoping to accomplish with the NextGen car’s durability. With the Gen 6 car, contact with the wall or another car usually resulting in bent sheet metal rubbing a tire. That tire rub would cause drivers to pit or risk flattening their tire. Meanwhile, the Xfinity Series was running composite bodies that allow some wiggle room when it came to contact. The Xfinity cars were able to bump the wall and keep racing without worry about losing a tire. NASCAR replicated the composition body with the NextGen car in order to have that type of wiggle room for the Cup Series.

Ignoring the general tire issues the NextGen car has seen, the composite body has reduced the tire rub issues the Cup Series was plagued with. With that said, the NextGen car replaced the tire rub issue with an toe link issue. Instead of a tire rub when making contact with the side of the car, the NextGen car’s toe links break. A broken toe link effectively ends the race of the driver who was unlucky enough to kiss the wall, rub another driver, or get door slammed on pit road. If the goal was to allow the racing to be more forgiving, why is there a part on the car that breaks every time it gets touched? Structurally, that is a failure on NASCAR’s part.

The goal was to have the Cup Series cars replicate the durability of the Xfinity Series. Instead, the NextGen car is more fragile than the Gen 6 car.

Failure to Live Up to Marketing

When it comes to the failures of the NextGen car, perhaps the worst thing it has failed at (outside of driver health) is hitting any of its goals. The car fails to keep drivers safe, the parity on display is more from chaos than quality racing, short track racing is awful, road course racing is maybe marginally better, the upfront costs are still being felt by teams, and the entire NextGen era was kicked off with supply chain issues. Overall, great work NASCAR. When one of the most linked phrases with the current edition of the Cup Series car is “crappy parts”, that speaks volumes.

Now, all of that could be forgiven if the NextGen car delivered on two off-track promises: bringing in new owners and laying the foundation for a new manufacturer. Since the implementation of the NextGen car, both of have been reduced significantly. New ownership in the sport has stalled since introduction of the NextGen. Trackhouse Racing, 23XI, and The Money Team were formed based on the potential benefits of the NextGen car. Since the NextGen has been introduced, the amount of teams racing is going down. This year has been a continuation of a downtrend in entries. Only twice this year has there been an entry from a team without an existing chartered team in the field (not including the Daytona 500). Whenever there are more than 36 entries for the Cup Series, it is Trackhouse, Kaulig, or Legacy Motor Club bringing a third entry in.

So far this season, NY Racing, Team Hezeburg, and MBM Motorsports have not attempted a race. All three teams attempted at least one race in 2022. NY Racing raced half of the first ten races last year. If teams that already have access to a NextGen chassis are not racing, then how will new owners get into the sport? Outside of new money buying existing teams, new ownership is not happening. If NASCAR had a choice, surely it would want new teams being established rather than existing teams being bought out.

At the same time, a new manufacturer seems closer to a dream than reality. There have been rumbling over the past couple of years that Dodge/Chrysler or a European-based manufacturer might enter the sport soon. However, those rumors have died down, especially in regards to Dodge. At one point, it seemed that Dodger returning was only a matter of when rather than if. NASCAR’s Le Mans entry is supposed to help court one of the European manufacturers to the NASCAR landscape. Whether that will be successful is yet to be seen.

Speaking of Le Mans, NASCAR is trotting out a NextGen-esque car specially built for the Le Mans race. All the time, money, and effort that went into that project surely was extensively. This weekend, the world will see how worthy that effort was as Jimmie Johnson, Jenson Button, and Mike Rockenfeller are behind the wheel. If the car performs well, great. If it is terrible, that is another black eye to NASCAR, this time on the intentional stage. Either result will lead to the same conclusion for many: all that time, money and effort from NASCAR engineers could have been spent fixing the Cup Series car.

In theory, NASCAR can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Working on the Le Mans project does not necessarily mean they have not (or cannot) fix the NextGen car. However, it does show that NASCAR is distracted. While they are distracted, the Cup Series is consistently the worst racing product they are hosting. The Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series consistently outclass the premier series in motorsports. Those two series have their teams building their own equipment still. Weird how that works.