After a visible revival in fortunes, Richard Childress Racing entered the GEICO 500, intending to recapture the magic of Kyle Busch’s 2023 outing at Talladega. But the #8 Chevy spun across the finish line in an undeserving P26 finish, courtesy of the final lap ‘Big One’. Rowdy’s post-race statements only unfurled the 2024 frustrations further, and fellow veteran driver Denny Hamlin joins his familiar rival to amplify the grievances surrounding this ‘NextGen’ of NASCAR evolution.

Denny Hamlin joins in on Kyle Busch’s NextGen woes

Busch was the defending champion of the GEICO 500 until Tyler Reddick ensured Michael Jordan’s victory lane exposure, with his first victory this season for 23XI Racing. Interestingly, Reddick and Busch, are the only active drivers to win at Talladega in all three NASCAR National touring series. But with Reddick taking advantage of the blatant opportunity brought about at the hands of Brad Keselowski, and Michael McDowell on the final lap, Busch and his teammate Austin Dillon, failed to make any marks for Richard Childress Racing, from dual top 10 starting positions.

Fuming after the team’s underwhelming performance, the two-time champion’s frustration was especially evident at his #8 NextGen Chevy Camaro ZL1’s Alabama showcase. He made his feelings clear both in post-race interviews and in a blistering statement on his official Twitter, as he wrote, “Ride in line=finish where u r… TRY to race for win=finish last… I hate these🤬cars!!!” 

His former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate seemed to agree with KFB’s post-Talladega conclusions. And on the latest episode of Actions Detrimental Hamlin brought up this exact tweet. “He’s so right though,” agreed Hamlin, as he provided his expert dissection stating, “And that’s the tough part about it, is that when you look at the final restart, it looks like the last lap. The two cars that controlled the outside line and the inside line were the same cars the entire last thirty laps. Because you cannot afford to get out of line. If you get out of line. It’s over.” 

Ironically, Hamlin would justify his backing for KFB on the topic of lines, considering a TRD-enforced single-file push ended his day on a P36 DNF. However, as he elaborated further, the reasons make much more sense with the NextGen adaptations looming in the background.

Drag, Horsepower, and the evolving Superspeedway package

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Speaking to co-host Jared Allen, 23XI Racing’s part-time owner continues, “The NextGen car has a tremendous amount of drag in it.” Denny explains, “That’s basically how far the car can go down the straightaway.” Denny Hamlin then goes on to support his statements while revealing the flaws of an evolving superspeedway package, supported by the much-talked-about ‘horsepower debate’.

He states, “On top of that, we changed to a common engine cause we wanna save costs… so now we have more horsepower than we’ve ever had on a superspeedway. But we’ve had to put a giant spoiler on the back of the car to slow them down. And we’ve slowed them down even more because cars have flipped over in the last few years, NASCAR wants to limit liability there so they keep slowing the cars down more and more…”

Cutting through dirty air can certainly be a ‘drag’ on superspeedways with ‘equal engines,’ as Hamlin would then justify, “The negative is when you go to pull out of line and actually pass. It is a parachute, exactly right, it’s like pulling a dragster parachute when you’re done with your run. The car stops immediately because it’s so heavy on drag.”

But in a race that saw over a dizzying 70 lead changes, it was a constant battle for track position, with seven of the top-10 finishers starting out from mid-pack positions such as P10 Harrison Burton who rolled off the grid in P16. Even Tyler Reddick won the race qualifying from the 18th spot. So are these frustrations truly justified? Or is it just another finger to point at a rapidly passing NASCAR field?