NASCAR’s introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022 marked one of the sport’s most sweeping overhauls, reshaping everything from safety innovations to pit-road choreography. While the model has earned widespread praise for its safety gains, its short-track performance remains a work in progress. Even so, the car delivered some improvements on pit road, and Christopher Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, compared his predictions back when the model debuted with what it is now, narrating how the drivers and pit crew have adapted to the challenges.
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The video never surfaced at the time, but Stevens recently revisited those earlier comments and evaluated how his projections stack up now that teams have lived through four seasons with the Next Gen platform.
Discussing pit road timing in the old era, Stevens had explained that the traditional four-tire stop hovered around 12 to 13 seconds. Occasionally, a crew hit an 11-second stop, but for most of the field, drivers were still positioned in their pit stalls long after the earliest cars were already prepared to leave.
Stevens had predicted that the Next Gen era would change that rhythm entirely. With faster four-tire stops, he believed NASCAR would see cars peeling out of pit boxes while others were still entering, creating a maze of crisscrossing traffic and an increased likelihood of contact.
Reflecting on those predictions today, Stevens said, “I think that didn’t end up being as big of a deal specific to that because it’s just a matter of timing, right? So, we were used to a certain cadence and a certain amount of time. And now that time has shortened.”
Stevens added that the flow of pit road simply adjusted. “So, instead of being, you might have time for 25 or 30 cars to pass before you’re ready to leave your stall at a certain pit road speed, now it might be 15 cars to pass. So, it’s definitely been an adjustment, and it has increased that awareness and that propensity for that to happen, but it hasn’t been a huge deal.”
A major factor behind quicker pit stops lies in the evolution of lug-nut technology. In NASCAR’s early years, mechanics relied on T-wrenches to remove wheels, while the ’50s brought pneumatic impact guns and floor jacks, which were a major upgrade from bumper jacks.
Crews even held lug nuts in their mouths and installed them one by one, a process that drained precious seconds. A turning point arrived during a 1970 pit crew competition at Rockingham when a team glued the lug nuts to the wheel to speed up the exchange. That method became standard for decades.
The ’80s ushered in nitrogen-powered tools, and by the ’90s, specialized engineers entered the fray to optimize pit guns. From then until 2017, teams waged a battle over who had the fastest pit gun. By 2017, every gun in the garage had reached peak capability.
To level the playing field, NASCAR issued standardized pit guns in 2018. The Next Gen car then shifted the landscape further by adopting a single-lug design in 2022. The lone lug nut is stored inside the gun and installed when the car rolls in, eliminating the need for glued-on nuts and streamlining the entire stop.
As a result, pit stops can be completed in roughly nine to eleven seconds today. Meanwhile, Xfinity Series teams continue to use the traditional five-lug system, keeping a piece of NASCAR’s past alive as the top division sprints forward.
