“Bought at Target” – Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin Criticize Lack of Spare Parts for the 2022 Car

Published 12/05/2021, 12:02 AM EST

Previously, the NASCAR teams were able to manufacture their own parts for their respective cars. Unfortunately, with the Next Gen car, such a thing is not possible. Instead, everyone will be forced to purchase them through a designated supplier. This has raised a few concerns with the drivers, with Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin being the most vocal.

Busch cheekily quipped that everything is ‘bought at Target’. Meanwhile, teammate Denny Hamlin said, “We certainly are concerned with supply issues at this point. What I’m terrified of is if we have another semi-lockdown (due to COVID) and those suppliers can’t get the supplies they need to supply to us. We’re on a tight, tight schedule right now. The panic meter is moving.”

However, that is only part of the bigger problem that the NASCAR Cup teams are facing. Many are worried that they may not be able to get their desired spare parts. In the event that they fall behind in seeing their cars and parts delivered, they may not have a full fleet of cars per driver.

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Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch are worried about this affecting racing

With all of these worries, some drivers are afraid that the racing could change for the worse. To be precise, there is a chance that the drivers could be warned to avoid racing hard and destroying their new equipment. The bad news is that the Next Gen cars are getting a trial by fire, courtesy The Clash at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Since this is a short track, the risk of damage to the Next Gen cars is high.

The paddock next heads to Daytona for the next two races. Later on, there is a whole slew of races along the West Coast. Naturally, teams can’t afford to be down on parts at such a critical phase. Owing to that, Denny Hamlin believes that teams could try and take it easy at Daytona and during the Bluegreen Vacations Duel. Of course, these are racing drivers after all, and they are paid to race each other hard. So, it will be a matter of finding a balance between hard racing and avoiding trashing the cars.

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Dhruv George is a senior Motorsports author for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.