‘We Don’t Need to Touch It’: How NASCAR is Incorrectly Approaching the Next Gen Car’s Intermediate Package

NASCAR teams and Goodyear officials have been busy this week. They held a tire test at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, trying to figure out ways by which they could make the racing product at intermediate tracks better. There’s only one issue with that task. The racing product is good enough as it is, and any improvement is not likely to come through the tires.

The purpose of the test was to try out different tire compounds and see if more tire fall-off could be induced, akin to what the option tires did at Phoenix Raceway earlier this month. Achieving the right level of tire softness for intermediate tracks is a delicate mission to undertake. This is particularly true at ovals, where cars travel at high speeds in the corners.

But NASCAR, being what it is, does not mind the risk.

William Byron was one of those present at Charlotte and told the press, “I think, honestly, the tires at Vegas were going down to the cords if your balance was off, and some guys blew tires as we ran laps. So I feel like the intermediate racing has been really good, and honestly, I don’t think we need to touch it.”

The 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney seconded his opinion.

Goodyear did not bring drastically new experiments to Charlotte. This allowed teams to focus on their intermediate programs and gain some track time ahead of the weekend in Homestead-Miami. Practice sessions are at such a premium these days, and the drivers made the most they could out of it.

Kevin Harvick pleads with NASCAR to add more horsepower

Former racer Kevin Harvick was one of the many who noticed a glaring error during the Cup Series race in Las Vegas last Sunday. The cool track temperatures and the soft left-side tires led drivers to be wide-open on the throttle all around the track. Harvick seethed against the promotion for this on his podcast.

“Why can’t we just fix the damn problem? We spend millions of dollars on aerodynamics and now we’re wide open. They made the left side tire just that much softer and they’re just hammer down,” He said,

It is easy to see that he wouldn’t be too happy with Goodyear trying out even softer tires at Charlotte.

He contends that more horsepower ought to be added to the cars to solve this issue. Cup Series cars are currently fitted with a tapered spacer that limits the output of the engine to 670 HP. The engine can produce up to 900 HP if a different spacer is installed. It’s the easiest route to reaching the desired destination but also the one NASCAR is most reluctant about.