Why the NASCAR Gen 7 Car is Failing

When the Next-Gen car debuted in 2022, it already made a huge impact on the sport by being unlike any generation of cars prior. Despite that, it looked like it could be the car that would save NASCAR from fading into obscurity because it made the intermediate tracks watchable and even good again. It had its issues on short tracks and road courses, but there was hope that the problems with those tracks could be fixed. Time travel three years later, short tracks and road courses are still not good, and the quality of intermediate races has started to dwindle. To sell the idea on how this car is starting to produce more boring races, all the races in April, which were Martinsville, Darlington, Bristol, Talladega, and Texas, were underwhelming. Not all of them were bad, but none were races worth remembering.  Why is this decline happening?

  Quite possibly the biggest flaw with this car that is now rearing its ugly head badly is that the car simply races TOO good. The core components of a stock car are an engine that has high levels of horsepower, small brakes that allow for wheel spin, and narrow tires that lead to a lot of tire wear. None of these elements are in the Gen 7 car. Gen 7 cars have 670 horsepower on all tracks besides superspeedways. The tires are wider than ever, and the brakes are too big, making the brake zones smaller and not allowing any wheel spins or lockups to happen. All these factors make these races way less grueling on the drivers because they do not have to showcase their skillset as much. Less challenge for the drivers equals less opportunity for mistakes, great drivers to run up front, and fewer passes to be made. Another reason why this car races too well is that the cars are the same at their core. Every Gen 7 car has the same kind of chassis, which is the skeleton of a racecar. Two people with the same skeleton would move and operate the same, and so would two or more racecars. Amplified to the maximum with more than 35 cars on the track every week, there are 35+ cars with the same skeleton driving the same way on a Sunday afternoon. This makes everyone so equal to the point where having a better driver and engine in a certain car does not do much to make that driver and car better than other drivers. This is made evident when drivers can get stuck in the high teens to low 20s despite having a car capable of contending for the win. Case in point, in the most recent NASCAR race at Texas, McDowell got track position late by taking two tires, and on the restart, took the lead and almost won despite being nowhere close to winning speed all day. No one can truly stand out on their own because track position means way more in today’s NASCAR than it ever has, and when no driver can do anything to separate themselves, no one feels special or like a genuine, talented driver. To quote the villain in the movie, The Incredibles – “And when everyone is super, no one is”.

  Overall, NASCAR is in a rut right now. The people in charge of NASCAR have seemed to have given up on trying to fix the car while putting all the pressure on Goodyear to improve the racing, so there is a chance we may not see any major improvements to the car. Goodyear can do all they can, but when the issue is with the car, NASCAR needs to make the big changes like adding Horsepower, making the tires less wide to allow for more fall-off, and making the brakes smaller to allow for driver skill to be on display.

  Technical Advisor – Scott Korowotny