Championship Winning NASCAR crew chief reveals why the Next-Gen cars are losing wheels midway through the race

Championship Winning NASCAR crew chief reveals why the Next-Gen cars are losing wheels midway through the race

NASCAR

NASCAR has introduced a new generation car for its 2022 season which seems to be much better than the previous one and a whole lot quicker than its predecessor. However, one problem arises with this NextGen car, the new car appears to lose its wheel pretty often.

The NextGen car appears to be flawless, it’s quick, durable, and safe. But the only threat it poses is the car losing its wheels midway. This should be considered peril and NASCAR must act upon it immediately.

This happened multiple times this season with Bubba Wallace on the Circuit of The Americas, Kaz Grala losing his wheel in the season opener Daytona 500, and Corey LaJoie smashing into the fence and losing one wheel eventually getting run over by Cody Ware. All these eventually led to the suspension of the respective crew chiefs and members.

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“It is just the timing between the NASCAR pit crew,” Adam Stevens on Next Get car wheel issues

NASCAR
A NASCAR car’s wheel rolling off the track

Adam Stevens who is a well-reputed and widely respected crew chief out there is accustomed to Kyle Busch’s winning two championships. He currently works as Christopher Bell’s crew chief and he has only one thing to say about this concerning issue of NextGen cars losing wheels, he says that it is not a flawed design, it is due to human error.

Adam Stevens recently appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR radio and said that if the jack is dropped before the wheel is tight, the wheel will come off, he also added saying that the timing has changed so much and that the pit-stops have become quicker leading to the jackman not having enough time to check everything.

“If you drop the jack before that wheel is tight, it is going to come loose, and the timing of it has changed so much. Because the pit stops are so quick, the jackman doesn’t have time to glance back and forth to make sure that the changers are done,” said Adam Stevens.

He further added that everything is going off a tempo and if the jackman or changer doesn’t get it right it could end up being a problem. He concluded by saying that he doesn’t believe that there is a certain amount of tolerance for it and that it is pure timing and everyone has to work on that collectively.

“Everything is kind of going off a tempo and a feel and letting it rip. So, if there’s any kind of issue and the changer didn’t quite get it just right, or that lug wasn’t tight before that jack got dropped, you can have a problem,” added Adam Stevens.

 He concluded by saying that he doesn’t believe that there is a certain amount of tolerance for it and that it is pure timing and everyone has to work on that collectively.

“I don’t think that there is a dimension or tolerance or something that we could improve that would fundamentally fix that. I think a lot of it is just the timing between the changers and the jackman and getting that worked out,” concluded Adam Stevens.

Will NASCAR take this into consideration and work on it collectively with the teams for a feasible solution?

Also read: Alex Bowman is confident going into the ‘special’ Richmond track as the ‘defending race winner’