William Byron celebrated his second win of the season on Sunday, but the way he got there has stirred up plenty of debate. His fuel-saving strategy was impressive, no doubt, but it wasn’t enough to match the raw speed of his closest rivals.

Brad Keselowski, who won both stages, and polesitter Chase Briscoe looked poised to overtake Byron. Yet, despite having faster cars, they couldn’t get past him. The culprit? The quirks of the Next-Gen car at Iowa Speedway. And that’s exactly what has Dale Earnhardt Jr. fired up.

Dale Jr. does not mince his words

“It does everything like a stock car, just better,” Dale Jr. said back in 2021, after a Next-Gen car test. In just four years, his opinion has taken a 180-degree flip. With good reason, too. At the Iowa Corn 350 race, Brad Keselowski found it hard to pass despite his No. 6 Ford being the fastest trailing car. In the final stage, Byron had to back down to half throttle to save fuel, and even then, Keselowski or Chase Briscoe could not overtake him. This bizarre occurrence could be attributed to dirty air due to the Next-Gen car. So, Dale Jr. did not hold back his emotions anymore.

On a recent episode of ‘Dale Jr. Download,’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed the car was a travesty in the NASCAR world. “I don’t love the Next-Gen car. It’s an IMSA car, it’s a sports car. It’s got a diffuser, it’s got low-profile tires. It’s got big rims and big brakes. It’s a sports car. It’s not a NASCAR stock car,” he said. Truly, NASCAR officials even visited a Supercars round in the early stages of research and development in 2018.

NASCAR tried to mask the faults of the Next-Gen car with the help of Goodyear’s tires. We saw the anomaly that happened in the April 2024 race in Bristol – 54 lead changes and a tremendous fall-off. But that saw a 180-degree flip during the Fall race last season, with nobody being able to surpass Kyle Larson. Dale Jr. commented on that: “Two seconds of fall off in 25 laps is awesome. But if the tire they brought was cording, that tire that fell off would have been in the cords sooner. I don’t give a s—. Slow down…Get down pit road, get the tires on, whatever…That s—that happened at Bristol, that was great.” 

Dale Jr. continued with his rant, pointing out the glaring gap between drivers’ needs and NASCAR’s glamor. “I f—ing hate this car…Would I have ever built a NASCAR stock car that had a diffuser? No…I wouldn’t have put a low-profile tire on it and changed the side wall so the drivers can’t feel the f—ing tire…Because of the side wall, the tires are short. The brakes – what the f—? ….Now the braking zones are so f—ing short.” He added, “I’m disappointed that we have races like this, and the car’s just frustrating to watch. You know what the drivers are dealing with, you know what the drivers are struggling with…we’re worrying about being modern.”

Evidently, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s qualms about the Next-Gen have no bounds. It is well in tune with the rest of the NASCAR industry as well, as another veteran lashed out at this issue.

Urging a focus on speed

Presently, NASCAR’s Cup Series cars run at 650-670 HP. This horsepower package is a far cry from NASCAR’s ‘glory days’ of 900 or 1000 HP. That is also the reason why the racing differs greatly. With problems of passing and dirty air ramping up over the past few years, NASCAR has issued hopeful hints. Apparently, a return to a 750 HP package is currently being floated as an idea. However, 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick views this as yet another false hope. “It seems like just a PR ploy to me,” he said. Even Doug Yates, CEO of Roush Yates Engines, claimed in May that 750 “wouldn’t be much of a change” for engine manufacturers.

Over the past weekend in Iowa, the ARCA Menards Series posted faster speeds than the Cup Series cars. Kevin Harvick was utterly shocked about this. He further urged the need for horsepower to revamp the Next-Gen car: “The Cup cars need to go way faster, especially at the short tracks, and I don’t think that there was anything more evident than this weekend. The ARCA outqualified the Cup car, and it was extremely difficult to pass.” He added, “I think when you look at the short tracks and road courses, having too much power, I’d air to that side, because there’s just no reason that the Cup cars should be the slowest thing there on the weekend.”

With Kevin Harvick, Dale Jr., and other veterans protesting against the Cup car, will any changes come? Only time and a series of NASCAR updates will tell.