NASCAR’s final Round of 16 outing at Bristol Motor Speedway last Sunday has once again brought up the topic of horsepower in the context of the Next Gen Cup Series car and its performance on short tracks.
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The seventh-generation car has long been criticized for the sub-par racing product it puts forward at venues such as Bristol and Martinsville owing to the construction and aerodynamic dependency of the machine. The governing body has seemingly tried throwing the kitchen sink at the machine to fix what is an inherent issue in the formula of how the racecar is being built up until now.
Tire compounds, different diffusers, different splitters… and no matter what the short track package continues to produce the worst product in the #NASCAR Cup Series. You know what hasn’t been tried? Horsepower… can we try it, just once? Couldn’t hurt at this point.
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) September 22, 2024
The sport’s previous visit to ‘The Last Great Colosseum’ has once again resurfaced the topic of an increase in horsepower as the underlying fix to all of the Next Gen car’s woes. Fans on social media continue to pester NASCAR to take steps to improve the quality of racing on one of the sport’s fundamental styles of competition.
“I’ve been against the HP raise because I think it’ll hurt parity, but at the short tracks, I think that’s needed now. So I’ll hop on the train but only for short tracks,” chimed in one fan. Another avid viewer looked back at the sport’s heyday and said, “NASCAR continues to refuse to do what made the sport great, maxing out horsepower trying to go as fast as possible.”
There were several skeptical takes on the issue as well, with people from the racing community reacting to the issues with an underlying tone of pessimism.
“The only way any changes are made for short tracks is for folks to stop going to the races and to stop watching them on TV. NASCAR isn’t going to change a thing as it sits now, they are making money like it is,” said one fan. “Nascar is never going to add horsepower,” added another.
Nascar is never going to add horsepower
— MR. TURFY (@turfracingmast1) September 22, 2024
The governing body has tried all sorts of changes to the Next Gen Cup car aimed at improving the short-track racing product, with examples such as different diffusers and tire compounds with increased falloff taking center stage. It is now maybe time to do away with the stop-gap solutions and fix the inherent issue once and for all.
Kyle Busch’s wife Samantha reacts to “blah” Bristol race
Another indication of how the 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race was received by the fans, Kyle Busch’s wife Samantha Busch reacted to the 500-lap-long event last Saturday. A prominent figure at the track, Samantha took to X (formerly Twitter) to opine on how the event lacked variety in terms of overtakes and moves being made on the track.
She said, “Not just saying this bc we didn’t run well but can we all agree the only exciting part of the race was watching Owen celebrate w Kyle. Can’t remember a Bristol race being that blah in long time. Time to cancel this race car.”
It remains to be seen how the governing body reacts to this new wave of outcry for an increase in horsepower by the fans. Some might even expect NASCAR to turn a blind eye to it all once again.
