NASCAR has been in the bad books of the NASCAR community since early 2022. Only one reason for that: the Next Gen car has failed to capture the drivers’ and fans’ liking. From passing troubles to safety issues, the car has even manage to rile up bigwigs like Richard Petty. And the list of troubles continues as Joey Logano joined that bandwagon to provide his take on the topic.

Logano’s fortunes are yet to click in 2024, as he wades through Next Gen and short-track package problems. While striving to retrieve his 2022 mojo, the two-year-old Cup champion analyzed the Next Gen car recently.

Joey Logano identifies the biggest culprit among Next Gen features

Just a few days back, seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson hit the tracks in Texas. And the veteran fumbled, as his unprepared hands could not wield the Next Gen car wheel with ease. Johnson observed that he could not “slip and slide” around the car as easily as he could back in his days. 

Although Joey Logano patted himself on his back for passing more cars in Texas, the Team Penske racer sympathized with Johnson’s take. Speaking on SiriusXM’s NASCAR Radio recently, the No. 22 driver dived into the Next Gen car’s features that create problems. He narrowed it down to one specific factor, which is the glaring culprit.

“As a sport, you kinda gotta eliminate, process of elimination of what’s doing what. Do I think the five-speed trans axle’s doing it? No, that’s not gonna make a difference in racing. Do I think the independent rear suspension really changed it? No, not much. “

Then Joey Logano delivered his 9-word verdict: “I think the rear diffuser changed it…a 100%.“ He continued: “The way we race, the way we set up the cars, the way the nose is. I think that is one of the main reasons we can not loosen up the cars in front of us anymore.”

Logano further cemented his argument with a nostalgic blast from the past. “We used to have a splitter that we would drag on the ground as low as we can get it, and back up…And when you packed aero on the car in front of you, it would loosen’em up. Well, now we have the splitters up more than we’ve ever had in the old days…That to me is the No. 1 biggest difference in the Next Gen car compared to the Gen 6 car.”

Joey Logano’s well-structured argument aptly summed up the passing difficulties drivers face in NASCAR these days. Logano had also broached the safety issue of the Next Gen car in the first year of its launch.

The Next Gen’s short rear was the root of chaos

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In 2022, NASCAR faced immense heat as its new car design failed to pass a primary test. Drivers’ safety was compromised, as the shortened rear end of the cars elevated the severity of rear impacts. 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch suffered a concussion at Pocono and had to extend a race-absence spell. Additionally, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin also complained of heightened rear impact.

Joey Logano threw arrows at NASCAR for this unacceptable situation too. “I’m concerned. I think everyone is concerned right now…When you look at competitors and your own experiences being brutal in comparison to what the old car was, yeah, it’s going to raise an eye. You look at some of the things that have happened – Kurt’s situation, you hear about some of the wrecks from last weekend [at Daytona], my experiences at Charlotte and Michigan at the test, those things are real.”

Although the safety factor has been reined in, NASCAR still needs to notch up the racing quality as Logano and others have pointed out.