Chase Elliott calls out Next-Gen car designers for being “hard-headed” as they are not “willing to make changes and better our racing at different tracks”


Chase Elliott calls out Next-Gen car designers for being “hard-headed” as they are not “willing to make changes and better our racing at different tracks”

Chase Elliott

NASCAR introduced the Next-Gen cars along with some radical changes in 2022 with the main objective of making the race more harder and competitive. Though it can be argued that the new cars have been successful in making the grid much closer in terms of performance the design of the cars has definitely affected the final racing product as the car seems to be more favored on some tracks while not as good In some others.

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Next-Gen cars have been designed in a way that is more suitable for road Courses which has affected their final racing product on tracks, mostly the intermediate ones. Though it has increased the quality of Road Course racing, the question should be asked whether road courses are the best suit for NASCAR and its history?. Now Hendrick Motorsports No:9 driver Chase Elliott in a recent interview has come forth expressing his concerns regarding the stubbornness of NASCAR in not making any changes and how it can affect the future.

Also read: “When you beat Chase Elliott, you beat one of the best,” Richard Childress on Tyler Reddick’s much-awaited entry into the “winner’s circle”

Find out what Chase Elliott said

chase elliott
Chase Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson

Chase Elliott expressed his opinion on the concerning situation that the cup series continue to race with the Next-Gen car as it sits now pointing out the fact that the car designers are not willing to make changes that can boost the adaptability of the cat to different types of tracks. He suggests that in order for the best racing product NASCAR should be willing to change how the car behaves on certain tracks as time move on.

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What’s concerning to me is I don’t want the industry to be so set in this Next Gen car and how it sits currently — I don’t want the people who designed it, who came up with it, to get so hard-headed and set in their ways to not be willing to make changes and better our racing at these different tracks. Because this is a learning process, and I think you have to be willing to change this thing a little bit as time goes on, to put on the best racing product we can,” Chase Elliott said.

Chase Elliott went on to say that the thing that concerns him the most is the fact that NASCAR decided to do what the car was designed for rather than making any changes. He added that such an attitude might end up swallowing NASCAR’s pride as the fact that drivers are willing to go hard while the organization is not willing to make changes that can make the racing better isn’t a good thing.

It concerns me we’re going to get to a point of, ‘This is the way we designed it, we’re gonna make this work.’ And we’re going to end up swallowing our pride because we want to push this thing really, really hard and not be willing to adapt and make changes to put on a really good race at each track we go to,” Chase Elliott added.

Chase Elliott went on to say that the car has been a tale of two cars from the race tracks the cup series has visited as it has produced some intense races alongside some horrendous racing so far this season. He claims that NASCAR shouldn’t be hard-headed with willing to adapt and make changes in order to put on good shows for the fans.

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Because it has been really a tale of two cars from some of the racetracks we’ve been to, to others. We’ve had some good races and we’ve had some horrendous races this year, frankly, and I just think we have to be careful that we’re not too hard-headed to be willing to adapt and better our shows,” says Chase Elliott.

Also read: Richard Childress predicts NASCAR’s “plan for the future is to see more road course racing” which might not sit well with the majority of NASCAR fans  

Also read: “We’ll take what we can from the spring race,” Kyle Busch ready to contend for the win in the Atlanta Cup race which he claims to be “a whole new ballgame”