The introduction of the Next-Gen NASCAR Cup Series car brought a mixed bag of positives and negatives to the sport. While its ability on short tracks and low horsepower has been criticized, the new package has performed extremely well on intermediate-style tracks as well as road course races.
Advertisement
With every NASCAR era having its own set of pros and cons, this one is no different. On a recent episode of Kenny Wallace’s podcast, Rusty Wallace explained some of the positives of this current era of the sport and the Next-Gen car. Turns out that a lot of it has to do with how close and competitive the sport has become.
Back in the day, there were a few outright dominant drivers. People like Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and even Jimmie Johnson were just a class apart from the rest. Doing that is extremely difficult today and it is all thanks to the car. Motorsports is simply not fun to watch if there are only a few cars running at the front and winning races every weekend. The Next-Gen car has made sure that isn’t the case and also given smaller teams a fighting chance.
“I had question marks about the car but I do like the car. One thing I do like about the car is that it’s really made a lot of drivers able to show their talents. There are drivers out there that are really running up front that I personally thought were good drivers but average drivers that weren’t upfront on a consistent basis. Now these guys with this new car are upfront every single week,” he explained.
Wallace has had a fantastic career as a NASCAR driver. He has won an incredible 55 races and was crowned the 1989 Cup Series champion. This was at a time when Earnhardt was running riot in the sport. It just makes the title that much more impressive, driving for the now-defunct Blue Max Racing.
Rusty Wallace’s history as a Cup Series track designer
Wallace did not just contribute to the sport as a driver. A fact that some might not know is that the 68-year-old is the driving force behind designing Iowa Speedway, a venue that featured on the Cup Series’ 2024 calendar back in June this year.
He became the first race car driver to do so when he undertook the job 20 years ago. It is considered to be one of the fastest short tracks in the world but its designer believes that it races more like an intermediate track.
“This is kind of a track that’s 7/8ths of a mile in length. It races more like an intermediate track, not a short track but it’s going to be really fast,” he said before the Cup Series race at the venue.
The review from drivers was positive and fans in Iowa loved seeing Cup Series action in their city for the first time. Based on the response, NASCAR might be inclined to bring it back for the 2025 Cup season.
