Next Gen car showing progress, room for growth after tests at Charlotte
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
NASCAR saw something it had hoped to see but didn’t expect to see during the Next Gen test last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It saw a team destroy the front section of the car and be able to rebuild it over six hours and return to testing.
NASCAR also saw something it had hoped and expected to see during the test. The changes made to the car to cool the cockpit (shorter exhaust pipes, a windshield duct, slits in the rear windshield and a duct in the undertray for air flow) appeared to work.
The changes to fix the steering rack issues (a restrictor on the line to the reservoir that relieved pressure, and therefore, parts did not vibrate) also appeared to work.
Finally, NASCAR saw something it didn’t hope to see: speeds a little slow on the 1.5-mile oval and, from the minimal packs of cars, limited ability to pass.
As NASCAR continues to work on the car for the 2022 season, it needs to have a car in which drivers feel they can make a difference and pass another car. The issue is nothing new, as for several years NASCAR has had the problem that the car out front in clean air typically has a distinct advantage over a car in traffic, where the air is more turbulent.
In the days following the Charlotte test Wednesday and Thursday, teams were preparing for NASCAR to possibly change the testing schedule, which originally had all organizations heading to Phoenix in mid-December, Daytona in the second week of January and Las Vegas in late January.
NASCAR would not confirm any changes, but there could be a test at Talladega and another at Charlotte (or another similar track) in December or early January and possible changes to the dates of tests at other tracks.
NASCAR would not confirm garage speculation that the top laps at the Charlotte test — posted by Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Aric Almirola (175.718 mph) and Kevin Harvick (175.570 mph) — were with a tapered spacer that had bigger holes, meaning more air flow through the engine for increased horsepower. The rest of the field was 173 mph or slower, compared to a pole speed of 180.282 mph for the Charlotte race in May.
"If we go slower and it produces better racing, great," 2020 Cup champion Chase Elliott said. "If it doesn’t, then I think we should be going faster to try to appeal to that side of things."
The plan was for NASCAR to primarily use two different tapered spacers, one that would have the engines generate 670 horsepower on the shorter tracks and road courses and another to generate 550 horsepower on ovals 1.5 miles and bigger.
After the first day of testing at Charlotte, some teams used a 7-inch rear spoiler instead of an 8-inch rear spoiler in an effort to increase speeds. NASCAR officials theorized that the slits added in the rear window increased the rear downforce because air was coming through those.
Changing the spoiler was intended to increase horsepower by 30, but it appeared to increase speeds by 1 mph. The difficult part of evaluating is that drivers were still getting used to the cars, which means they weren’t necessarily pushing them to their limits.
"I didn’t notice a huge change in it, but I’m not sure I was pushed up against the limit of crashing at that point, either," Elliott said.
"When you’re not pushing hard enough, you’re not going to feel a change like that quite to the magnitude as if you were on that edge."
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A few other things that likely hamper NASCAR in its analysis: It has been notoriously difficult to pass at Charlotte in recent years, so were the results this past week the product of the car or the track configuration?
Another issue is that there didn’t appear to be a pack of more than six cars at any one time during the test. NASCAR didn’t mandate any sort of mock race, and teams likely were hesitant to be in a position in which they might be more likely to damage a car, as they just started assembling cars over the past couple of months.
While NASCAR tries to figure out how to make the cars race, at least it knows that the design of the car — with a composite bolt-on, bolt-off body and separate front, center and rear clips — will allow teams to make repairs relatively quickly.
Austin Dillon crashed early in the practice session, when he apparently spun in dew on the track and destroyed the front of the car. The Richard Childress Racing team changed the front clip, the body panels and bumper on the front of the car, the engine, the rear bumper, the rear tail and the left-rear quarter panel — all in about six hours.
"We did what this car was designed to do, and that was to replace just parts of the car that were damaged," crew chief Justin Alexander said.
While Dillon’s team took the car back to the shop, Alexander said that theoretically, the team could do that at the track overnight if it had a crash in practice or qualifying the day before a race. That wouldn't be possible with the current steel-body car and team-built chassis.
"Obviously, it depends on the severity of the damage, but I certainly think it’s possible [to repair overnight]," Alexander said. "There’s a lot of things on the cars that we’re testing with data acquisition and a lot of wires and things that we typically wouldn’t have on the car during a normal weekend.
"We weren’t really prepared for this as we would be on a race weekend. ... It would be a lot of work, but I do think we could get it turned around for sure for Sunday."
The car performed well from a safety aspect in the crash, said Probst, who considered the crash as one that would have been more severe than the average severe crash on a race weekend.
NASCAR had done another crash test at Talladega in recent weeks, and the changes helped the car deform better over the course of a crash and also decreased the amount of debris created in a crash.
"The car performed as designed," Probst said of Dillon’s crash. "Looking at the front bumper, it crushed the way it was designed to do. Talking to [Dillon], he felt like it wasn’t anything different than what he has felt in the past."
One other good element NASCAR saw: Ross Chastain said tire wear during a run resulted in laps two seconds slower later in the run, compared to the beginning of the run.
"I could hear and feel how much I slowed down from the beginning of a 20-lap run to the end," Elliott said. "That is going to change track to track.
"This surface is pretty abrasive, and it’s pretty old, so having some tire falloff is expected at a place like this. Outside of that, I don’t feel a ton different than what we had in our mile-and-a-half stuff last year."
Thinking out loud
NASCAR’s announcement of practice and qualifying for 2022 was a welcome return. NASCAR needs to have content during race weekends for those who come to the area for multiple days, and having Cup cars on track for two days is important.
It's important to generate storylines and content (coming from a media member, yes, there is a bias in saying that) prior to race day.
The question is whether 15-20 minutes of practice for most of the races is enough. Some drivers wish NASCAR had no practice, and others want more time to dial in their cars.
NASCAR's experimenting with group practice and splitting qualifying into groups to allow for more interviews of drivers (drivers not practicing might have time for interviews while others are practicing) could be a boost for viewers of the practice-qualifying program.
With the Next Gen car, there could have been an argument for more practice, at least for 2022. With limited practice, it comes down to the team engineers and the manufacturer-supplied simulation programs as to whether a driver will have a solid setup for the race.
The onus will be on NASCAR to have more at-track programming to engage fans with cars on track for less time during a race weekend than pre-pandemic. As mentioned in previous posts, NASCAR should be willing to change for 2023 if it doesn't see benefits from the short practice-qualifying session.
Social spotlight
Stat of the day
In 14 of the 36 Cup races in 2021, the final green-flag run was of eight laps or fewer. Six Cup races went into overtime.
They said it
"I felt like whether they won or lost, you had to have a hat. It was the right thing to do." — Chase Elliott on buying a World Series Atlanta Braves hat while at the games
Happy Thanksgiving!
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!
