Steve Letarte brands NASCAR Cup season final as “little sleepy”
23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin and ex-NASCAR crew chief Steve Letarte has explained why the Phoenix race was sleepy,
Follow Us
Steve Letarte (Via IMAGO)
The 2024 NASCAR Cup season came to an end with the upsetting championship triumph of Team Penske Racing’ Joey Logano. He produced an impressive performance, but overall, the race was deemed boring. The Athletics’ Jeff Gluck’s poll showed only around 42% fans agreed the race was good.
The overall race product has yet again made the racing community to start calling for the change in the finale venue yet again. Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. pointed out that type of the track and the Next-Gen car as the reason behind the underwhelming races. Now former crew chief and race analyst Steve Letarte has shared his verdict on the race.
He said via the Actions Detrimental Podcast of Denny Hamlin, that the season finale was a sleepy race and pointed out that with more tire fall, the race could have been much better. Letarte being a guy who has been reasonable in rating races and calling out bad races, pointed out that his judgement might be right.
I do need a little something different at Phoenix though. Tires, like — it was, from the booth, it was like — I’ll be the first guy, I hate when I see a good race, and everybody says it was a bad race, and the drivers, you know, Denny and I will disagree on those at times, because from where he sits, sometimes it isn’t a good race, but I’m from the fan standpoint, I’m like, ‘I disagree, that was entertaining.’ This one was a little sleepy, right? Like a second of fall off wasn’t really enough to — I don’t know. … It can always be better.
Steve Letarte said via Actions Detrimental.
Denny Hamlin blames the car for the issues
The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin pointed out that the track is an impressive one and it always getting huge attendance for races is the reason behind it getting more races. He pointed out that the track has a unique layout and good restarts, but it is the Next-Gen car that is stopping NASCAR from having great races.
The place gets rewarded because the fans turn out there, every time. They always do. … When you walk out there, I mean, it looks great. It’s a great venue. I hate it that the racing is not better, because it is a great — it’s a great racetrack. The layout’s very unique. It gives us some options on restarts. We’ve got — we’re racing multiple lanes, but it’s — we have a car problem.
Denny Hamlin said.
The points made by Denny Hamlin and Steve Letarte seems pretty rational, as the Next-Gen cars has been a major reason behind the track producing underwhelming races. It will be interesting to see how NASCAR would approach these changes.
Stay Updated!
Justin P Joy
(4859 Articles Published)