A common question that has been posed against many NASCAR Cup Series drivers at Homestead-Miami this weekend is if they think short-track racing has gotten better after the introduction of the Next Gen car. Two-time champion Kyle Busch was quick to declare that it has not and provide strong reasoning for his belief.
Advertisement
He said that the Next Gen has leveled the playing field to a great extent and that drivers have nothing to gain against each other on the track. Every team eventually figures out how to extract the maximum out of their car. When they do this, passing becomes nearly impossible and makes events too boring to watch, while drivers complain of the difficulty in overtaking.
In his words, “We’ve got a guy, Boswell, from another team from last year. Our Vegas setup from last year to this year with their Vegas setup that they had was really close. You know what I mean? We’re within a couple of hundred pounds on each spring rate and some other stuff. So, when everybody figures out what the best way is to skin the cat, there’s only one way to skin the cat.”
This lesson is the basis of Busch’s opinion. However, not every other driver shared his view. Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott told the media that they did think that the short-track racing product had gotten better. They attributed the softer tire compounds that Goodyear introduced to this.
What does Busch think of Goodyear’s option tires?
The option tires that Goodyear introduced are made of a softer tire compound with an increased fall-off rate. These tires offer a higher speed for cars at the cost of more tire wear. Due to the initial success of this experiment, many drivers have been asking for NASCAR to race an entire event with just option tires. Currently, only two sets of such tires are provided per race.
Busch was once again critical of this idea. What made the option tires work was that teams were able to draw different strategies with it. If every driver is put on the same level again by providing all option tires, there will again be little separate them. And the Richard Childress Racing driver is not fond of that.
He said, “When everybody’s on the same stuff, you all fall off within the same five laps of one another. You can save your stuff a little bit, but honestly, with the pace and everything being so tight… Half a tenth is a lot. If you’re running within half a tenth of somebody and trying to preserve tire, it’s about near impossible to do.”
At the end of the day, teams and drivers just need the space to draw up strategies and implement them. This won’t be possible if there are no factors that separate them in some way. Having a limited number of option tires is the best possible way to go as things stand, or so it seems from Busch’s point of view.
