The safety of Nascar’s Next Gen race car has come into question in recent weeks, prompting the sanctioning body to implement changes to the Chevy Camaro ZL1 race cars, along with the Ford Mustang and Toyota TRD Camry. These changes are applicable to the rear end of the race cars’ chassis and will help direct crash force away from the driver, according to a report by Car & Driver.
The organization has altered components of the Nascar Next Gen cars’ chassis to create a better crumple zone at the rear of the car in the event of a rear-end wreck. Changes to the Camaro race car, as well as its Mustang and Camry equivalents, include new rear bumper struts with reduced thickness that will give more easily in a rear-end wreck. The rear clip and center section will also be modified, removing longitudinal bars to mitigate rigidity in the rear of the race car.
Teams must strip down all chassis they wish to have altered and send them to Nascar’s single source chassis supplier to have the changes made. The sanctioning body stated that it would cover the costs of the changes for all teams. The changes were proposed at a meeting with drivers on October 8th, 2022, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Two Cup Series drivers have suffered concussions from rear-end impacts in the Nascar Next Gen cars this year, causing several drivers to call for improved safety. In July, Kurt Busch rammed the back of his No. 45 Camry into the wall at Pocono in July during qualifying, suffering a concussion as a result. He has yet to return to racing as he recovers from sustained injuries during the event. More recently, the No. 48 Camaro of Alex Bowman struck the wall at Texas in a similar manner, forcing him to tap Noah Gragson as his substitute until further notice.
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Comments
Stock Car racing was a lot more interesting when the cars were virtually the same cars you could buy at the dealership and their performance could be influenced by the imaginative tinkering expertise of the different team mechanics. That is before NASCAR started playing God.
You can still see that. Go check out your local short track Super Stock division and watch the same guys win every week lmao
I’ve made the statement about the “new” car, since it’s inception. Nascar did too many changes at once! If they were going to replace the existing cars, make small changes one after another. Not all at once, like this car. Just too much new stuff. Now guys are getting really hurt. A simple wall hit, knocks these guys for a loop. Just listen to the radios. Most will say, “That’s the hardest hit I’ve ever taken”. Denny Hamlin has been the most outspoken. It’s good to see NASACR finally doing “something”. Lets hope it is not ,”too little too late”. I know these guys make BIG money to race. But, when NASCAR, made all these changes at once, they mad the sport even more unsafe, not safer. Time will tell shortly.
Missing from this article is the date by which these changes will take place.
I’ll put money they already started the changes. The teams pay too much to have a driver on the sidelines. Watching somebody else drive. ⛽🏁
Nascar say that the teams have to send all their frames back to the supplier for retro fits. If they do that now, how to they race the rest of this year? I know. They race with the junk!!!!! The junk these drivers are getting hurt bad in. Said it before…Nascar changed way too much stuff at once! Now the drivers are paying the high price of this greed. Lets hope they get this right.
NASCAR…..😴😴😴😴😴💤💤💤
NASCAR fixed something that really wasn’t broken. New cars are overkill. IRS not a good mix for oval tracks.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!
I’d like to see a REAL stock car series.
ZERO modifications.
You buy a new car at the dealer, paint a number on it, and then go racing.
News just broke, that Kurt Busch is retiring. The first casualty of this “New Gen. Car”. There has been crashes, all through Nascars history. But nothing like what has been happing with this car. Nascar messed up big time with this Car. Now one of the sports longest racing drivers, has to call full time racing quits. Now, maybe Nascar will see that they put to many changes in this car at one time. The drivers hate it, team owners are going nuts, and many many drivers are getting hurt. Which driver will get hurt next? Who will not return next time? The car is junk. Rear trans axle, independent rear suspension, Single lug nuts, etc the list goes on. Too much, too soon. Nascar just wanted to look like some of the crap thats running on the street. Wrong move!
I don’t think it’s totally nascars fault, I think it’s also some of the fan’s input to Nascar that “we want cars that look like the one’s from a dealership lot” with (low profile tires, independent front and rear suspension, different rims/wheels, underbody trays, rear mounted transaxle’s, & rack & pinion steering, over the old “tried and true recirculating ball & worm steering setup” that Nascar used until 2022 & so Nascar bent-over backwards by designing a whole new race car and the driver’s are paying the price for being “test dummies”