NASCAR’s VP of Vehicle Performance Reveals Phoenix Test’s ‘Cooling’ Narrative as He Assures Addressing Drivers’ Major Concerns

One of the biggest problems that NASCAR has faced for some time now is its short-track racing package. While the Next-Gen has a lot of positives, short-track racing does not seem to be one of them. Therefore, NASCAR decided to schedule a 2-day test session on December 5 and 6 to check out a new short-track package. After the first day, NASCAR’s Vice-President of Vehicle Performance Eric Jacuzzi had some interesting comments.

There are several Cup Series drivers taking part in the 2-day testing session including the 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing star Christopher Bell. A lot of drivers have raised concerns over the Next-Gen cars and the biggest one is about the low horsepower. However, NASCAR has not indicated that they are going to increase horsepower anytime soon.

NASCAR executive shares tires and aero knowledge after day 1 of testing

So what did the drivers and NASCAR test on the first day? Well, the main issue that is to be resolved through these sessions is the lackluster short-track racing. The new package specifically focuses on short-track racing and in that respect, upgrades have been made to the aerodynamics, tires, mufflers, and transaxle. From Eric Jacuzzi’s comments, it seemed like the tires and aero were the main focus of day 1.

The NASCAR executive also revealed that they would be running the mufflers on day 2 and make sure everything was in order before the new season began. Jacuzzi also revealed that they were addressing drivers’ concerns with ‘cooling improvements’. Given that most drivers are concerned over low horsepower, it will be interesting to see how they react to these improvements.

The Vice-President of Vehicle Performance said, “I think for it’s having…coming out of here with the direction of the tire. Coming out of here with the direction of the aero package that yes, this is going to be neutral to positive and any other things that learned along the way, and tomorrow we’ll be running our mufflers and that so making sure we go to LA and not gonna have anything unexpected. We got some cooling improvements along with those too to kind of address the drivers’ concerns so yeah, just a lot to it, lets play it till the early season and then kind of what we do in the future going forward,”

One will hope that things go well in the test sessions because better short-track racing is something everyone has been wishing for, for the longest time. They will draw a lot of positivity from Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney’s comments, which had nothing but praise after the first day of testing.

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Ryan Blaney heaps the praise on the new short-track racing package

Blaney suggested that the car drove a lot different from what he had driven this season. The 29-year-old said that there was a lot less downforce on the car which made it faster than before. If his words are to be believed, then NASCAR may have taken a major step towards solving their short-track racing problem.

“Yeah, a big difference, so. You know we unloaded exactly how we were informed with this car. Ran a couple of hours on it with a different splitter- big difference. Massive with the way it drives. I mean, there’s so much downforce taken off. I love it with that. Yeah, it was big. The first laps I had I was like man this thing drives way different,” Blaney said.

Such a positive review will fill other drivers and fans with a lot of enthusiasm. It will be a huge positive for NASCAR if they manage to fix their short-track racing issue in 2024 and they seem to be on the right track.

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