The all-new Nascar Next Gen car has officially debuted, but not without tribulations. A propeller shaft failure on the No. 8 Chevy Camaro of Tyler Reddick at the Clash at the Coliseum on February 6th, 2022 prompted an investigation by Chevrolet’s racing division to determine the source of the malfunction.
The failure occurred while the race was under caution. Reddick was leading when the yellow flag flew, and while the field was slowed, he wove his No. 8 Chevy Camaro back and forth to build heat in his tires to prepare for the race restart. However, it became evident that the No. 8 had suffered a mechanical issue as it suddenly fell off the pace and slowed on the quarter-mile temporary track before the green flag waved. Reddick retired to the infield, surrendering the lead and ending his hopes of capturing his first win in the Nascar Cup Series.
The No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team initially believed the Nascar Next Gen Camaro had suffered a broken transaxle. However, further investigation revealed that the prop shaft had failed, resulting in a sudden loss of drive power.
“[Reddick] was getting ready to restart, trying to get heat in the tires and dropped the clutch a little too much, too abruptly,” said Dr. Eric Warren, director of Nascar Programs for General Motors, in an interview with NBC Sports. “There’s some technical work to see on, was that [failure] unique to something we haven’t seen before? Was it a specific part failure? A new type of part?”
Warren said that Chevrolet’s racing division would delve into identifying the cause of the No. 8 Camaro’s prop shaft malfunction, and hopefully turn up answers soon. He also added that the failure was cause for a “little concern,” considering that the Coliseum is a small track with conditions similar to Martinsville Speedway, at which the NASCAR Next Gen car will race in early April.
“That much gear and that violent of a restart probably would be something to think about,” Warren said. “At the time, we hadn’t really seen that issue in the past, so we need to get into it a little bit.”
It should be noted that the Nascar Next Gen cars are assembled by Cup teams using various parts that are built by outside vendors.
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Comments
Great article. What a way to start the season! Hope it’s fixed soon. Love seeing that Camaro on the track!
I’ve been a gear head for 60 years and never heard of a prop shaft on a vehicle, other that a boat or plane? Please amplify
The Prop Shaft is the “correct” term for drive shaft. Most of us still say drive shaft.
Incorrect. Prop shafts run from the engine to the rear transaxle. It turns at crankshaft speed. Drive shafts run from the transmission to the rear axle when the transmission is mounted to the engine. The corvette had a driveshaft pre 98’ and had a prop shaft from 98 and forward when they went rear transaxle.
You’ve got to be kidding!
I
What’s going to happen once the Camaro is discontinued? Will Chevy still make it for racing or what?
I didn’t see the race so my question, when he retired to the infield, was it in the grass and had to be towed? Or drive/coast to the infield?
My silly question is that we all know when you lose a driveshaft you lose the ability move.
The article kind of makes it sound like he drove it to the infield and the got out…which makes it harder to believe its a driveshaft verses the spline… Anyway, see, it was a silly question and for not watching the race…. lol
The Coliseum is a very small quarter mile temporary track with small oval setup, so there’s no grass. The pits were stationed outside of the complex. Reddick coasted to the apron near the infield entrance and a safety truck pushed him the rest of the way.
Henry Ford is spinning in his grave with the renaming of traditional vehicle parts. Drive shaft to Propeller shaft. ??? LOL.
Also, Henry is spinning where 95% of a vehicle’s parts are now designed, engineered and produced by vendors. Henry is liking that the automakers are now using robotic transfer lines to weld the bodies and paint the vehicles with workers attaching vendor sourced parts. All done in under 6 to 8 hours per unit in
assembly. Even a lot of the body stampings are vendor sourced. Cost accounting elegance has reduced the life of the product. Designed and also planned into the maker’s code for vehicle replacement after 5 years at approximately $40+K a pop. A cash generating cow and suckering the consumer. The American automakers are famous for this. The Asians and German automakers have extended the life of their vehicles over the American makers by a few years to their overall success. Example Toyota and VW.
Propeller shift or driveline back to the vendor for weld inspection and analysis. Maybe a steel metallurgical quality tubular quality issue from steel supply house to shaft vendor.
Henry Ford RIP.
While I don’t disagree with some of this premise (emphasis on some), you clearly have never driven a Volkswagen if you think they are more reliable than a U.S. domestic.
Or any German car. Comparing German cars to Japanese is too funny. They are the complete opposite ends of the engineering spectrum. Japanese make small changes, very slowly to retain reliability. Germans completely reengineer constantly to have the newest and the “best”, they do not design for reliability. GM and Ford are actually starting to go the way of the Japanese with reusing a lot of parts and only making small changes, that’s why they have improved reliability over what they used to build. Domestics still have a ways to go, but saying German cars last longer is hilarious.
allenk2: I was at SEMA a few years ago talking to a couple of Ford engineers manning the Ford display in the inside of the west end of the Central Hall. We were previewng the various small IC engines, which were on display, before this crazy EV thing, that the government master planners are shoving down our throats.
The Ford engineers shared with me that Ford’s small IC engine design and development is done in Deutschland with German engineering contractors.
So there you have it. I also asked the engineers if I could get a tour of Ecoboost Engine Plant # 1 in Ford’s Cleveland Engine complex. They said that they would arrange it the next time I get to Cleveland. As a former Clevelander, our 50th high school reunion has been put on hold for the past two years due to Covid. Maybe I’ll tour Engine Plant #1 this fall. Too bad Ford and others have stopped making small IC vehicle engines out of gray iron. Costs and longer engine life dictated change to less costly aluminum and shorter engine life for sooner replacement. Designed obsolescence again. More revenue $$$.
That’s not news. For 50 years, Ford had V6s designed in Germany. The Cologne V6 refers to the German city. This carried on with the 3.5L EcoBoost.
The 6.7L Powerstroke was designed by Austrians. Many of the US small Ecoboost engines were built in the UK and shipped over.
From the 70’s, most of GM’s small and medium gas engines came from Opel in Germany. Most, if not all, of the Ecotec engines are German designed. With the sale of Opel, you’re going to see much more Korean/Chinese small gas designs.
What ever happened to good old home grown red, white and blue engineering? We have 5000+ colleges of higher education in the USA. Great engineering schools: Carnegie-Mellon, Purdue, MIT, University of Michigan, Case Western Reserve, Stanford, Berkeley, University of Cincinnati, Emery, etc., just to name a few. Sorry for excuding many other great engineering schools.
I was on the campus of Case Western Reserve in Cleveland a few years ago. I was stunned and amazed to see that the majority of students were from Asia.
We have great schools and educators, but are training and shipping the brainpower across the water.
Caterpillar now has a vast amount of Japanese, Hindu and Chinese brainpower designing their products across the water. Now they even have a vast amount of iron made across the water and have shuttered many large plants in the Midwest.
This upside down thing will eventually come back to haunt us big time.
DAvid A M,
What you said is as false as the guy who thinks pony cars are all solid axles.
Asia which includes India, now graduates 10 PHDs to every American educated and those numbers keep going up. So now 10:1.
***Actually, that statistic is now 10 years old, so expect higher currently
PhD from crappy schools in poor countries don’t mean anything. Most of those degrees are basically scams, which are supported by the government because it creates numbers they can boast about.
China and India have roughly 10 schools each that produce advanced degrees that are relevant. A PhD from the rest barely compares to a US undergraduate degree.
Even in the US, your degree should come from the top 30-50 schools. You can get a PhD by mail from Walden, go see where that gets you.
The only response I can give you Sam is that you’re a complete idiot.
Murray,
Where is all that revenue you talk about? Ford and GM continue to lose market share and are shrinking into nothing with hundreds of plants closed around the world in the last 25 years.
Plenty of that revenue is in the pockets of Toyota who is now #1 all over the world including the US market.
Driveline failure always comes to mind while witnessing victory burnouts.
@36 years old/young it’s been called a propellor shaft as long as I can remember considering that they’re are lord than likely bearings attached to each end
The only guys I ever hear use the term Prop Shaft are the English Guys on tv. Didn’t cars of decades ago use term torque tube with shaft inside? Corvettes with irs the shaft does not go up and down like a solid rear end. I would think if you want into auto parts store and asked for a prop shaft they would look at you strangely? They say, ‘balance a drive shaft ‘ not prop shaft.
I worked a short time where among others, we sold Cushman parts. I had to look up a Clutch assembly, & was scratching my head! I think the only thing Close to what I had heard, was the “Throw-out- bearing”, was called the “Release bearing”. The Clutch was Something else, as was the Pressure Plate! I can’t think of what Cushman, called them. lol
A lot of gals are parts persons these days. Not taking anything away from them, but all this double, triple nomenclature for the same part can be confusing to them. Simple stuff like castle nut, castlelated nut, cotter pin hole nut, crown nut, all meaning the same fastening nut.
Didn’t know cars had propellers.