{"id":291661,"date":"2025-11-18T19:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291661\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T19:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:53:17","slug":"nascar-industry-considers-taking-some-spec-out-of-the-nextgen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291661\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR industry considers taking some spec out of the NextGen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before the NASCAR Cup Series began utilizing the single source supplied NextGen car, Chase Elliott<\/a> was waving a red flag urging the community to consider the perils of spec racing.<\/p>\n

He said that passing in the previous generation car became an increasingly more challenging proposition because the tighter rule book kept teams in a tighter box. In short, the more cars are the same, the closer in speed they become, and the more procedural the races are.<\/p>\n

That is especially true for tracks with just a single groove.<\/p>\n

So now, four years into the NextGen era, that is the biggest competition element that NASCAR is having to address more often than not — especially as parity has given way to a hierarchy but with less passing overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about this before, but for sure, the more we\u2019re the same, the harder it is to be different,\u201d Elliott recently told Motorsport.com. \u201cEveryone at this level is really good at driving these cars. Most of the tracks we go to, there is a preferred lane, and when the track gets rubbered in over the second half of these races, it becomes really difficult to do something different than the guy ahead of you since he\u2019s in the optimal line.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd some of it, this is just motorsports in general, people getting smarter over the years, right, in terms of aerodynamics and how to tune these cars. Go back 20 years ago, and the sport was still finding out how some of these knobs and levers worked, and now we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chase <\/p>\n

Chase Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet<\/p>\n

Photo by: Michael Bush – Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

While Elliott laments the sameness in the Cup Series, he also doesn\u2019t shy away from the challenge because it is what is, and Hendrick Motorsports<\/a> pays everyone on the No. 9 team to figure out how to get track position.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo now, we\u2019ve never had a bigger emphasis on qualifying and your pit stall, how fast that last pit stop is, and all those things,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cIt\u2019s for sure a different time in motorsports, regardless.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, in my view, you have to learn to appreciate the challenges that we have today, because I just think they’re probably going to be a little bit different and, and probably going to be different forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that said, NASCAR is entertaining the idea of targeting certain areas of the car to allow for competition. League president Steve O\u2019Donnell said as much during a conversation on the Dale Jr Download in October.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always open to changes,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cThe one piece I really look at, and I think our group does, we have this car and some things contained from a cost standpoint but what does everyone really like?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ability to tweak on the car and find an advantage to do something cool. What\u2019s the next iteration of that? Now that we have the parts and pieces long term, maybe we look at race teams are making some parts again, some things we can open up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give it a cost cap where we can open it up. But we\u2019ve at least stopped the wasteful spending and now we want to get it back to where an engineer can come in and tweak on a car or an OEM can say \u2018this is our IP and we want to try something\u2019 from a new technology standpoint. We\u2019re open to tweaking on it. We had the mindset of needing to stop the bleeding so now what can we do to keep making the racing better?\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that interest Elliott?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just hard to speculate because I don\u2019t know what specifically he is talking about,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cLike, super casually, yeah but I just don\u2019t know what he means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad Keselowski<\/a> had the same answer when asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to provide an answer without knowing what exactly they would want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Austin <\/p>\n

Austin Cindric, Team Penske Ford, Christopher Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, Josh Berry, Wood Brothers Racing Ford<\/p>\n

Photo by: Christian Petersen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Adam Stevens, crew chief for Christopher Bell<\/a> and the Joe Gibbs Racing<\/a> No. 20, was at least enthusiastic about the idea of opening things up because he misses the days where his engineers could innovate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, that\u2019s interesting and I hadn\u2019t heard that OD said that at all,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cI would certainly be in favor of it. Even if I remove myself from the crew chief chair, and take the 30,000 foot view, when you have the ability to work on the car beyond the shocks, and springs, and set-up parameters, it creates competition, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the history of the sport, at least in my time, somebody has a hot hand and someone doesn\u2019t. You can be on the leading edge of the development curve and everyone catches up and you have to get back to work. It creates comers and goers, and fast cars and slow cars, people on the way up and down, with more areas in which to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge is that Stevens doesn\u2019t immediately know what NASCAR should open up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would certainly be in favor of it but as far as areas where, I don\u2019t know, but I would love competing in any area of the car with the equipment that I would be allowed to,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cSelfishly, that is part of the sport that I enjoyed immensely that is kind of gone. I know a lot of talented engineers, racers and fabricators are the same way. I feel like we\u2019re missing that. If they would sprinkle some of that back in, I would certainly enjoy that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His teammate, Chris Gayle, crew chief for Denny Hamlin<\/a> and the No. 11 team shared in Stevens\u2019 general enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to look at some of our underbody stuff,\u201d Gayle said. \u201cDo we need to sit on the shocks. There are some areas they could open up that wouldn\u2019t cost anything, that might would create opportunities, but it\u2019s so hard to say right now without having a lot of time to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ryan <\/p>\n

Ryan Fugle, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro and William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports, Liberty University Patriotic Chevrolet Camaro<\/p>\n

Photo by: Rusty Jarrett \/ NKP \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 also doesn\u2019t like having this car sit on the shocks the way it does.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, yes, 100 percent in favor of opening some things up,\u201d Fugle said. \u201cThere are plenty areas of the car that you could say, \u2018whatever you want to do but don’t do this\u2019 and \u2018don’t change that\u2019 to make things way more open. Right now, the car and the setup has been developed around the shock limiters, really. That\u2019s how we keep the cars off the track and that\u2019s created the entire setup around that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some things I think we could do that wouldn\u2019t be very expensive, in my opinion, it would just take some development. It would be running sim and tinkering — more time than anything else. And that would inspire some of the groups at these race teams too. We have some burnout, going through the year, and we are so limited on what we can change, and with just a little but more opening of the rule book, that could get us excited and it would be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the rest of his peers, Paul Wolfe for the Team Penske<\/a> No. 22 team hadn\u2019t heard O\u2019Donnell\u2019s quote but also says he misses the days of innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I hadn’t heard about that or considered that it would ever be on the radar to open some things back up so I need to put some more thoughts into it to give you better answer,\u201d Wolfe said. \u201cBut generally, I enjoy change and I think it’s healthy for competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the rule book changes and evolves, it creates opportunity, and creates some separation with teams finding that speed early and then others catching up and surpassing them. I support anything that allows for that kind of competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone quite a while now with this generation car with things being pretty stagnant. Those of us who have been in the sport a long time enjoy the competition and creativity and I think the racing would definitely benefit from giving teams a chance to make some things happen or find advantages, even if it\u2019s just for a short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even before the NASCAR Cup Series began utilizing the single source supplied NextGen car, Chase Elliott was waving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,3628,131779,82],"class_list":["post-291661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup","tag-nascar-industry-considers-taking-some-spec-out-of-the-nextgen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}