NASCAR issued a memo to drivers as whispers sound throughout the industry
The NASCAR Next Gen car will make its debut in 2022. The car has been in development for over a year. It will be a spec chassis that’s the same, for all teams. Aerodynamic impacts have been reduced. The car is expected to improve the racing product as well as cut development costs.
Recently, the NASCAR Next Gen car went into crash testing. That test took place on June 30th, 2021 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Rumors have been circulating regarding the results of crash test. Very little has been said or officially released about the results, which may have sparked the memo that NASCAR sent to drivers on Friday.
Steve Hmiel, former NASCAR crew chief and competition director for Dale Earnhardt Inc., offered a comment via social media.
“So painful to watch the development of the new car,” Hmiel wrote. “The engineers could really use a real world guy to temper some of their ideas. Have seen photos of a wrecked car and hearing rumors of sled tests killing the dummy, the car may be too stiff with too few crush zones.”
The Next Gen car is scheduled to make it’s debut in Daytona 2022. Initially, the car was to be released for 2021 but the release was pushed back a full year.
Months ago, plans were in place for the teams to receive cars in June. However, the teams have yet to receive the cars, only pieces of the machines.
Related: Kyle Busch knocks the NASCAR Next Gen car
Chase Briscoe deletes comment on NASCAR Next Gen car
A reddit thread has surfaced. More than 700 comments have followed on the subject.
“Based on his tweet it sounds like if the test accidents occurred in real life they would likely be fatal? Am I getting that right,” a fan asked via Reddit.
Chase Briscoe used his verified Reddit account to respond, “Correct.”
However, Briscoe has since remove that comment from the site. NASCAR’s memo below indicates the dummy would be very much alive.
Ryan Blaney comments on crash tests
Blaney has also commented vaguely on the crash test:
“I think since then they’ve crash-tested it. We didn’t have a ton of information back then about it. I don’t have a great answer on that,” Blaney stated.
“I’m sure they’ll come out with that whenever they get some good numbers and things like that. I know there’s rumors going around and stuff like that, but as far as that goes, I don’t think there’s enough information out there to have truthful rumors.”
“We’ll see where it stacks up, but I don’t have a lot for you on that side of it right now. Sorry.”
Related: NASCAR Next Gen could make Xfinity racing more expensive than Cup racing
NASCAR Memo: Update on Next Gen Testing
Ahead of last weekend’s race at Road America, NASCAR issued a memo to the drivers:
“Test was completed at Talladega on June 30th using a current spec NG vehicle fitted with a crash dummy and driven by a robot.”
“The processing of all that data is well underway, this includes the correlation and re-running of models. The team is also identifying additional cases for crash comparisons.”
“Preliminary review of the dummy data from the test indicates good and comparable performance when compared to other right frontal dummy data (non NG). There is still a lot more analysis to be completed and that has started. Worth noting, that through all testing (sled and full vehicle) the dummy itself has functioned nominally.”
“All of this data is being packaged up and will be sent to an independent panel made up of experts in the biomechanics/safety field (Dr. Raddin, Dr Crandall, Dr Myers and Dr Stizel) for their review. We expect this to take roughly one week.”
“When all of this is complete, we will set up another review with you guys.”
Related: NASCAR 2022 car shapes revealed (Video)
