The next-gen car’s performance on short tracks this season has been worse than last year. But why say that when we had edge-of-your-seat action at Bristol and some interesting moments at Richmond?

Well, Bristol was a fluke, a good one, with tires wearing down like nobody’s business. Richmond got a twist thanks to some rain drama. But, when it came down to Martinsville, the cars and tires just didn’t deliver–it felt more like a long jog than a race. But Denny Hamlin suggested a possible fix. He didn’t dive into the short track package itself, but he hinted that playing around with tire wear might be a key move for Goodyear and NASCAR to spice things up.

Denny Hamlin’s got an idea that deliberate tire wear might just be the trick to amp up short-track racing

Denny Hamlin has asked NASCAR and Goodyear to really push the envelope and make the tires way softer than they’re used to. While the Gen-6 cars had softer tires, NASCAR beefed them up because drivers were blowing up tires left and right. Drivers had to do that because the cars needed to stay stable aerodynamically, which meant the tires had to endure more punishment.

Drawing from Richmond and Bristol, Hamlin said maybe NASCAR should take a page out of Formula 1’s book when it comes to tires. “I know that Formula 1 each weekend has an option right soft medium hard tire. And they decide what’s the best tire for them. Tell me why we can’t do the same it certainly maybe would create passing because if you gave us some soft options maybe two sets of soft options for the race this weekend clearly I know that it’s not going to last.”

But tires isn’t the only problem Hamlin pointed out about short-track racing. He mentioned that by dialing back the downforce on the next-gen cars, we’ve accidentally restrained the exciting short-track action.

Could the next-gen car’s lack of downforce be messing with short-track action?

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Back in 2023, NASCAR rolled out a new package for the next-gen car that cut downforce by 30% on short tracks, aiming to spice things up. Cutting down on it means less “dirty air,” making it easier for cars to tail each other closely. But it seems in the case of next-gen cars it did not work out very well.

Denny Hamlin chimed in on the downforce topic, saying, “Downforce while I agree with the general reason behind doing this- It creates less tire wear if you have less downforce. So, they needed to greatly soften the tire up (a) because of the less loads that NextGen has and (B) because we’ve taken even more downforce from the car than what it had before so we’ve got get-together. NASCAR and Good Year need to get together they need to get a separate driver someone is not even in the series go out there and test and they need to wear tires out.”

Do you agree with Denny Hamlin? Do not forget to share your expert thoughts on the short-track racing conundrum in the next-gen cars.

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