Ever since its introduction in 2022, the Next Gen car has attracted a lot of criticism from insiders, drivers, and fans alike for a variety of reasons. Over time, NASCAR has heard and worked on those criticisms as well. But the one criticism the sanctioning body simply doesn’t seem to be getting a hold of is also one of the car’s biggest issues: the racing product it produces. And after the recent race at Kansas, the criticism is getting deeper.

NASCAR Insider eager for the Coke 600 to properly judge Next Gen car

One of the biggest call-outs against the Next Gen car is its ability or disability to produce good racing on short tracks. Time and time again, be it Bristol, Martinsville, or Phoenix, the Next Gen racing has been quite far off the mark.

Despite that, the car produced somewhat interesting and, at times, even exciting racing at intermediate tracks. Think of the 2024 Las Vegas spring race or the 2025 race at Homestead or 2024 Kansas, which saw the closest NASCAR finish in history, the Next Gen car delivered at intermediates.

However, two years from the closest finish in the history of the sport, the Next Gen seems to be losing its lustre. This was something NASCAR insider and New York Times’ Jordan Bianchi recently called out in the Teardown podcast after Sunday’s race at Kansas.

“Last spring at Kansas, this spring race, Las Vegas earlier this year, we’re starting to get more and more of these races on intermediate racetracks. You’re like, ‘This kind of feels like the old days a little bit,’ where it’s track position and maintaining that. And you don’t have guys being able to make passes and that kind of thing. As we’ve talked at nauseam about this car and all of the issues that this car has that doesn’t run well, we feel like on short tracks or road courses, and people that take exception to it on superspeedways. What is the one thing we’ve always been able to hang our hat on with this car? It runs great on intermediates, and that is increasingly becoming less and less so,” he described.

To Bianchi’s point, the recent Cup race at Kansas only featured 17 lead changes. In 2024, that number was 27. At Darlington earlier this season, there were 16 lead changes. In the 2025 Coke 600, there were 34 lead changes.

Because of the worrying trend of the Next Gen car at intermediates, Bianchi mentioned that a big flashing point for the Next Gen car could come during next month, during the race at Texas and the Coke 600. “I think those are going to be two races, especially the 600, is going to be really indicative of the state of this car on intermediate racetracks,” he added.

Now, it has to be addressed that NASCAR has done its fair share of tweaks and modifications to the car over the years to make it better. However, as per one of NASCAR’s star drivers, the sanctioning body has been in a catch-up mode with Next Gen right from the get-go.

Star driver believes NASCAR rushed the Next Gen

In an episode of Actions Detrimental last year, Denny Hamlin claimed that NASCAR rushed the Next Gen car upon its arrival in 2022. Hamlin argued that the car needed more testing, which is interesting because the car was originally slated for a 2020 introduction, a plan that was derailed by the pandemic.

“They just didn’t do enough testing. The car wasn’t ready. We had to delay it one year, we had the COVID thing — it was not thought out enough. We didn’t have multiple racecars on the racetrack testing this car until two months before the very first race. And at that moment, is when we all realized holy sh*t, you cannot pass. It was really, really bad,” the #11 driver said.

Hamlin’s frustrations are clearly not without reason. The Next Gen car has led to stale racing at superspeedways and short tracks, historically the most exciting racetracks in NASCAR, with lots of lead changes and big moves. In the Next Gen era, the cars run in packs at plate races, and drivers dominate entire races from the lead at short tracks.

But the JGR veteran believed all NASCAR needs to do to make things better is an intervention. He suggested drivers, teams, and NASCAR need to get in a room, have a discussion, and come up with remedies to solve the car’s problems.

However, until that happens, the car, its problems, and the byproducts of its problems may continue to persist. And unfortunately for fans, those byproducts of Next Gen, the racing, seem to be only getting worse.