Kyle Larson and Ryan Preece’s gut-wrenching crash at Talladega raised serious questions regarding the safety protocols of the Next-Gen cars. T-boned on the passenger side by Preece, the Hendrick Motorsports’ #5 car’s right panel was in tatters. Ryan Preece’s #41 car too suffered heavy damage to its front facia. Lucky to have walked away safely, the crash could have been much worse had Kyle Larson been hit on the driver’s side.

Facing heavy criticism for the subpar safety standards, NASCAR was forced to up the safety measures. In June 2023, NASCAR announced that the upgraded Next-Gen cars would debut at the Atlanta Motor Speedway’s night race. Expressing his displeasure at NASCAR’s slow response, Joey Logano recently went on a rant against NASCAR.

Joey Logano brutally slams NASCAR

Taking the mangled cars of Kyle Larson and Ryan Preece to its test facility, NASCAR handed them over to its VP of safety engineering, Dr. John Patalak. Carefully studying the crashed cars, the right sidebars were strengthened with additional steel plates, and the V-brace from the Next-Gen car’s front clip was deleted. Further, an empty ballast box was added along with a modified cross-brace. While the upgraded safety measures were lauded, the time it took for NASCAR to address the issue stood out as an eyesore.

The crash at Talladega was in April, but the upgraded Next-Gen car wouldn’t debut until July. Unhappy with the slow addressal, Team Penske’s #22 driver, Joey Logano, while speaking to Sport Casting’s Kyle Dalton, said, “Just not fast enough, and we just need to do a good job looking for any possible scenario that can hurt us. We need to watch the tracks yourself, we need to find those areas and we need to be loud, and we are gonna be loud about where the issues are.

“You know there’s no doubt. I shared the back of the car isn’t too stiff for me to change. Front of the car, we know, is a little too stiff. Changes are coming on next week.”

Slamming NASCAR, the two-time Cup Series champion even pointed out how the slow response gravely endangered his teammate, Ryan Blaney at Nashville. “Took way too long and we almost hurt a driver again because of it. So we’re just too slow, we are too slow. We designed a car that hurts the drivers more. We took a serious step backwards from a safety standpoint and we almost hurt another on last week,” Logano added.

Watch This Story: Joey Logano Warns Denny Hamlin To Watch Out, Reviving Kyle Busch’s “Respect” Argument

While the updated Next-Gen car will debut at the upcoming Atlanta race event, the current model has already nearly claimed two more victims following the crash in April.

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The 2023 Ally 400 became the center stage of the safety battle as Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney suffered a horrific crash due to the absence of SAFER barriers on the inside wall. Triggering a massive oversight debate, the head-on crash left Ryan Blaney ‘foggy’ with concussion-like symptoms.

Earlier at Gateway, Noah Gragson suffered a massive wreck due to exploding rear brake rotors. Crashing sideways into the outside wall, Gragson walked away fine from the crash, but later in the week, he developed concussion-like symptoms that led him to sit out the race at Sonoma.

Read More: Days After His Fiery NASCAR Outburst, Ryan Blaney Makes a Huge Health Revelation

With these incidents in mind, Joey Logano’s rant doesn’t seem out of place. Nevertheless, there is much to look forward to at Atlanta. Stayed connected!