TALLADEGA, Ala. — Despite another fantastic photo finish in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway Sunday (Oct. 6) evening, drivers and teams still find themselves more frustrated by challenges with the racing product and procedures presented by the Next Gen car.
“I didn’t even have fun today,” 33rd-place finisher Joey Logano said after his release from the infield care center, looking just as dejected as he sounded.
Often viewed as one of the top superspeedway racers, he was discouraged by the racing product.
“You can’t even do anything here,” he observed. “You get just stuck. You’re running four wide and it looks cool, but you’re running half-throttle. Then when you want to go and it’s time to go, everyone’s just stuck two wide.”
“It’s incredibly tough to race like that,” echoed Ryan Preece, who finished 35th. “I’d love to figure something out where we don’t have so much drag or whatnot to where we’re not just saving fuel trying to gain track position that way.”
While the Next Gen car has put on some incredible displays at the 1.5-mile tracks, racing just about everywhere else has suffered in the eyes of fans and drivers. A lackluster Bristol race in September resulted in an outcry for an overhaul from many fans, displeased with the short track product.
“I thought Bristol was an awesome race and the fans said it was a terrible race,” said Christopher Bell after finishing sixth. “Inside the car, this one feels like a terrible race, but I’m sure the fans are going to say it was a great race.”
“I’ve never really thought this style of racing was fun, but I will say that it is infuriating truthfully,” Chase Briscoe shared. “You can’t do anything. You’re just stuck.”
Briscoe finished 30th, 32 points below the cut line. His crew chief, Richard Boswell, also added to the conversation.
“It sucks, right?” Boswell said. “You race around four wide at barely faster than qualifying speed. That’s not drafting at Talladega, that’s riding around at Talladega. I don’t know how we fix that.”
Meanwhile, Chris Gabehart, crew chief for Denny Hamlin, did have an idea.
“I am a proponent of making the stage lengths the length of the fuel tank,” he said. “In Gen 6 racing, when you came to these kinds of tracks and watched it, there was a lot of nuanced driver talent on display … I mean you could see greatness in that.
“Gen 7 speedway racing, I just don’t see any greatness.”
The superspeedway product has provided a source of frustration in all three years of the Next Gen car. Another concern that has resurfaced in the playoffs revolves around the damaged vehicle policy (DVP).
At Kansas, Josh Berry was towed to the infield after a spin with no wall contact led to four flat-spotted tires. Because he was unable to drive back to pit road, Berry was forced to exit the race early for not meeting the damaged vehicle policy.
“All I know is that all those cars in turn 3 better not get towed to pit road, buddy, because that would be breaking the damaged vehicle policy,” an animated Berry said outside of the infield care center. “F**king No. 42 car is over there doing burnouts, slinging rubber all over the safety workers trying to get going. if you have four flat tires, you’ve got to get towed to pit road, you’re done, right?”
“I feel like that whole process could for sure be better,” Briscoe added. “I know that it will get better as we get more experience with it.”
But wait, there’s more.
The red flag flew for cleanup from the massive 28-car pileup. However, the yellow waved again while cars still sat stuck on the apron and the pace car remained motionless.
“It was early. I was surprised when we took back off. There were still five or six cars out there,” said Bell. “In my opinion, if you’re going to red flag the race, you should red flag it until we’re ready to go.”
Race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also noted the unusual procedure, even though it didn’t affect his race or points scenario.
“I thought it was odd that they turned the yellow light on and let some of those cars get back to pit road and start working on them as we’re just sitting on the backstretch.”
After the race, NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer addressed the DVP and the unusual red flag procedure.
“We’re going to do our absolute best to clean that up and not be in it, but that’s just part of sports,” Sawyer said about officiating becoming a part of the storylines once again. “We’ve got to continue to learn, but there’s just a lot of really positives about this car, so we’ve got to make sure we continue to capture that and learn from the things we need to work on.”
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!