Cup Series Crew Chief Hands Penultimate Solution to NASCAR’s Alleged Speedway Snoozer

There has been a lot of chatter and debate surrounding the Next-Gen following last weekend’s Bristol race. Although there was an anticipation of tire wear racing again after the spring event, the playoff race proved to be a complete shocker. No tire fell off, green lap runs, and Kyle Larson plowed his way to his fifth win of the season.

For long NASCAR has rallied behind the idea that a Goodyear tire would flip the situation and criticism the new car is facing. But, after the Bristol race, it was clear that the core problem lies with the Next Gen car. It’s not just short-track races that have been affected by this new invention, but it has led to fuel mileage racing on superspeedways. Forcing drivers and teams to execute on strategy rather than racing their opponents.

However, it seems like one of the crew chiefs from the NASCAR Cup Series garage has found the solution to end these woes once and for all. Ryan Bergenty from Front Row Motorsports, who leads the charge for the No. 38 team of Todd Gilliland, shared pointers on how the Next-Gen car can be improved. It was indeed a lengthy list of changes that NASCAR isn’t likely to approve, but shared it anyway.

“Hear me out @NASCAR

• Remove the entire carbon floor from front to back
• Install old school valence to the nose
• Ride height rule
• 900HP
• Reduce camber by 2* on all corners
• Option Tires. And yes for 1.5 mile tracks!

How much would this cost teams? @dennyhamlin,” Bergenty shared on X. One of the key highlights was the increased HP of the engine. Denny Hamlin has long advocated a bump in Horsepower, therefore Bergenty made it a point to tag him to be a part of this conversation.

But, instead, his rival crew chief and other prominent NASCAR personalities also took notice of these demands and added their take to this conversation.

NASCAR community reacts to massive tweaks to the Next-Gen race car

The first one to take notice of these extensive demands was Denny Hamlin’s crew chief, Chris Gabehart. He touched upon the 5th point, the camber adjustment, which directly coincides with the grip level of the racecar. The teams set the camber depending on the track conditions, but Bergenty wanted a reduction in camber adjustment for all corners. To this, Gabehart replied, “You’d almost be making lift by then. Lol. Camber reduction wouldn’t be needed to be white knuckling it! 😄”

Option tires haven’t been a great success just yet. NASCAR rolled this new compound during the All-Star race at NWS. Again, a similar tire failed to deliver during the Bristol night race last weekend. Therefore, questioning the demands for an option tire for all races, this fan wrote, “Don’t care for the option tires – and honestly at this point do you think Goodyear is really capable of making a consistent tire anyway? We need to get off the tire thing and accept that they are gonna be bricks, and instead start working on the car (rest of your post is good :)”

However, Ryan Bergenty had a good rebuttal to this argument. He highlighted why camber and aerodynamic tweaks are what keep the Goodyear tires from delivering on the racetracks. “Yes they can. Goodyear has very good people and very good product. Some of the dynamics of the car are against them … hence downforce and cambers.”

Another user on X seemed to agree with his suggestion to remove the entire carbon floor from the underbody of the car. We have seen the cars flip upside down after going sideways during the races. Corey LaJoie and Josh Berry were involved in such freak accidents, and this was presumed to be due to the packed underbody. “Unseal it from the track. Air flowed under race cars for years without lifting. Making them harder to drive will create disparity between the cars and separation on the track. Horsepower would be nice, but out of the track would be a quick fix.”

One of the big surprises was Berdenty mentioning these changes to be implemented on the 1.5-mile tracks too. Out of all the races, the mile-and-a-half package has led to thrilling races and consistent output of what a race would look like on the intermediate package. This fan reminded the FRM crew chief about the core issue on hand, which is the short-track package. “Don’t change the 1.5 mile package it works! Just need to change the short track package.”

Thanks to NASCAR’s strict single-vendor purchase policy, team engineers hardly have anything to work with in terms of adjustments. However, giving the power back to the hands of the team could see the situation improve, according to this fan. “Let the engineers go to work on the car. Only rule is a hight, wheelbase, and basic engine parameter rule package! Stop the kit car with all parts supplied by NASCAR. I’m sure there are many engineers who can fix the problem overnight if they were allowed to fab their own parts.”

It would be interesting to know what your thoughts are on their discussion. Would you like to see any of these changes made to the Next-Gen car or just let it be the way it is?