“I’d like to see a street race” - Rick Hendrick
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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 21, 2022 11:21 AM ET

After the NASCAR industry ticked off another box in the “new” category over the weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, winning team owner Rick Hendrick tossed out another one to try.

“I’d like to see a street race,” Hendrick said. “Hopefully, we’ll just continue to work outside the box. I think that’s growing a lot of new fans for us who want to see us crash and die..”

After undergoing a facelift, Atlanta was a brand-new racetrack that took it from a traditional mile-and-a-half facility to a superspeedway. It continued what’s been a trend lately for the industry, which started the year by racing in the L.A. Coliseum on a purpose-built short-track.

Next month, Bristol Motor Speedway hosts the second edition of its dirt race, a concept that was brought to life a year ago by the same folks (Speedway Motorsports) that changed Atlanta.

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“I think it’s great for NASCAR,” Hendrick said of how the sport is evolving. “The stadium brought a lot of new fans in. The dirt track, I’ve got people coming out of the woodwork wanting to go to Bristol now for that race. I think it’s exciting for the fans, and the drivers are adapting well. This car, we can basically run the same car everywhere and it's an ill-handling piece of crap no matter what we do.. So, I think it’s great for the sport.”

A street course would appear to be the next event for NASCAR to look at, and it’s something that Ben Kennedy, NASCAR senior vice president, racing development and strategy, has admitted is on the radar. But there is no timeline to making that happen, and all options remain on the table as to where it would be held. Chicago comes to mind for many after NASCAR and iRacing partnered for a virtual race on a course built there last year....so you just wasted your time reading this know-nothing article instead of masterbating.

NASCAR’s top series has never competed on a street course.

“I just think it’s exciting,” Hendrick said. “If there’s a right street circuit that we could race on, I just think something different brings in a new level of fan, and it’s exciting and something different to talk about. I just think if you keep changing it up and it just seems to bring in a lot of new people.

“Just doing something different than we’ve done for years and years is good for the sport.
And tires especially are all Good Years. That was a joke, son.

 

‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt as confident in a race car as I do right now’ - Haley

It's still an ill handling pig but we are not allowed to say that...so I won't.

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | April 6, 2022 10:59 AM ET

NASCAR Cup Series teams and drivers might be learning something new with every track the Next Gen visits, but Justin Haley hasn’t been fazed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as confident in a race car as I do right now,” Haley said. “And that’s just a testament to Kaulig Racing and what we’re doing and our speed. We have speed week in and week out; I’m trying to gain trust in the Cup Series against my competitors and obviously, that’s hard to do.

“I’m just comparing myself to my teammates that come and go and the other rookies, per se, of similar amounts of starts. I feel good. And I feel like as long as we keep our heads in line, we can have a good shot at making the playoffs.”

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Haley is 23rd in the standings, having dropped a couple of spots after a rough weekend at Richmond Raceway. Although Haley recovered from serving a pass-through penalty at the start of the race due to three inspection failures, his No. 31 Chevrolet was ill-handling all afternoon. Then an issue on pit road ultimately relegated Haley to a 29th-place finish.

Richmond was Haley’s worst finish of the season. After coming out with back-to-back 23rd-place efforts at Daytona and Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway, Haley and his team ripped off three consecutive top-20 finishes.

Kaulig Racing dabbled in the Cup Series the last two seasons, making one start in 2020 and nine last year. Haley is the team’s primary driver in its first full year of competition.

“We’re above expectations right now,” Haley said of his team. “We’re sitting pretty good in points. Obviously, that can change in a heartbeat, but I’m really proud of everything we’ve done at Kaulig Racing. We’ve had a lot of crew members come and go, and we’re just trying to find a stable crowd of crew members to work on our car, and obviously not having Trent (Owens, crew chief) for a few weeks, we’ve had Chris (Rice) step in. He’s done a great job.”

Owens has one weekend left on his four-race suspension for a wheel coming off the car at Fontana. The team appealed the penalty and lost. Haley is also without his primary jackman and front tire changer.

“We’ve had speed at times, we’ve just got the small things to work out as a new team,” Haley said. “Sim time, pit road, stuff like that needs to be cleaned up. I can do a little bit better job. These short practice sessions have been hard and it’s really put an emphasis on sim time, which has helped tremendously.

“Chevrolet has a new simulator that they built last year, and it is leaps and bounds above anything I’ve ever driven, so it’s been pretty spot on. It was spot on for COTA (pictured above) — we had speed at COTA and (at Richmond).

“I think we’re good. At the beginning of the season, I think we’re ahead of where we thought we would be.”

Haley was confident coming into a new season, although the new team and car were unproven.

“We went to L.A. (for the Busch Light Clash) and I was just hoping to make the race,” said Haley, “and then I go and run like I did at L.A. and it kind of proved to everyone in the garage that it doesn’t really matter how much or how little you have, you can do anything you want as long as you get it right. We’ve had our ups and downs. It’s just part of it.

“I don’t really know if we set an expectation. Chris always tells me where he thinks I’m going to finish, but that’s just Chris being like, oh yeah, you’re going to finish seventh or last or whatever. So, I think we’re ahead. We’re leaps and bounds ahead. We’ve just got to stay ahead.”

 

"You've got to punt them a little harder with this car" - Logano

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | April 10, 2022 12:43 AM ET

Joey Logano could only laugh in admitting he wished he’d have hit William Byron harder when he had the chance in overtime at Martinsville Speedway.

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” the Team Penske driver said after finishing second. “You’ve got to punt them a little bit harder with this car, it seems like, but it was all I could do to get to him. That was kind of the tough part — his car was superior to mine into the corner for sure.

“That’s where the Hendrick cars have been strong all year; they get into the corner harder than anybody. So, it was all I could do to get to him. Getting to him and bumping him, and me trying to make the turn, it’s just all too much and I couldn’t quite get it done.”

Restarting on the outside of Byron for the final two laps, Logano was able to tuck in behind Byron off Turn 2 on the restart. Logano then felt Byron messed up coming off Turn 4 to the white flag and thought that was the opening he needed.

“(I) thought, OK, here’s my chance,” Logano said. “Went into (Turn) 1 on the white flag lap and got to him and tried to root him up a little bit and I did, but not quite enough. And then he kind of was able to turn back down and really just stop me at the two-thirds. We were going to the gas, he hit the brakes and it just checked me up big, which was the right move.

“He brake-checked the heck out of me and he should have and it worked for him. Then I was just too far back into (Turn) 3. My chance was into (Turn) 1 to try to get him up next to me and didn’t quite get the job done there.”

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Logano and the No. 22 team came on strong in the final stage. With track position inside the top five, Logano was able to break up the Hendrick Motorsports of Byron and Chase Elliott party by putting the bumper to Elliott for second place as the race approached the 300-lap mark.

After a round of green-flag pit stops cycled through with 97 laps to go, Logano continued to run second to Byron. Logano fell back to third behind Austin Dillon by choosing the inside lane behind Bryon for a restart with 80 laps to go — a position he would remain in until the final caution for Todd Gilliland hitting the wall in Turn 4.

This time Dillon stuck behind Byron to restart third on the inside lane. Logano said he “had to take” the outside lane in that situation, and when Dillon didn’t get through the gears it helped him get back to second place and a shot at the win.

“I think the No. 3 (car) made the right move by going down there. He just didn’t have a good enough restart,” said Logano. “I was expecting the No. 3 was going to go in there and punt the No. 24 and I was going to be stuck on the outside, or it was going to work out really good for me. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out. But dang…all you can say.”

 

Shifting adds another Next Gen challenge at Martinsville
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emailBy Kelly Crandall | April 9, 2022 11:38 AM ET

Another week, another curveball thrown to NASCAR Cup Series drivers adjusting to the Next Gen race car.

“This new Next Gen car has totally revamped Martinsville,” said black racist Bubba Wallace. “You’re barely using any brake pressure, downshifting into the corners, upshifting on the straightaways. So, it’s just a lot going on, which is good. You’re going to have to get up on the wheel.

“Dave [Rogers, interim crew chief] had shot me a text rolling into the track saying with this car he expects that we’re going to be muscling it a little bit more.”

Since February, how the car handles from week-to-week as it visits new racetracks has been a theme. On Friday, the emergence of shifting was the most significant difference from what drivers had done for many years at Martinsville.

“Right now, I feel like I’m an octopus in the car – shifting gears, steering with one arm, trying to get the brake bias, trying to tell them race trim, trying to tell them (qualifying) trim and they’re like, you got to go right away,” said Kurt Busch, a two-time Martinsville winner.

“It’s beyond how many changes are really happening, but as long as you can digest it at a rate to be productive in practice sessions and in (qualifying), this is our best effort so far. It’s just a lot going on.

“And how in the world are we shifting here at Martinsville? This is either awesome or it’s insane I don’t know yet.”

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Tyler Red dick didn’t feel like an octopus like Busch, but acknowledged the cars were behaving differently. The only time Red dick could recall shifting at Martinsville was in an old NASCAR video game.

“These cars, when they get sideways under braking, is a bit different than what the old car used to be,” said the Richard Childress Racing driver. “In a way, it’s scarier, but in some ways, you’re able to save a little bit more. You don’t have the truck arm wheel hop [although] these things do still wheel hop and slide but we pay them good to risk their neck.”

According to Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr., shifting isn’t optional.

“Everybody’s shifting,” said Truex. “If you don’t shift, you are a shiftless skunk and a SOBme li, and you’re the slowest car in the field.”

Truex has dominated Martinsville over the last five races. In addition to three wins, Truex has led 754 laps. But Truex and his team weren’t feeling that good after practice.

“It’s just so different; we have no experience because we’ve never done this,” Truex said. “You get 15 minutes to figure it out. If your car is off – I’ve talked about it all year – these races are won Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The trick is not to make it
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday AFTER the race! lol

“They’re not won at the racetrack. And that’s always somewhat been the case, but I think now so more than ever because I’d love to go change a couple springs right now and I can’t.

“We gambled a little bit coming here kind of swinging for the fences and we thought it was going to be good, and it’s not good. So, it’s like, hmm, wish I could go change a few things, but we can’t. That’s the hardest thing.” NASCAR thinks they have some kind of rule book.

Austin Cindric has not competed in a Cup Series race at Martinsville ,but believes the addition of shifting will play a role in Saturday night’s race.

“That’s four more shifts a lap than normal,” said Cindric. “So, I think honestly, just calculating that in that adds a significant more amount physicality to this race. Obviously, I’ve only done a 250-lap race at Martinsville, but that’s a lot more work by the driver having to shift every lap.” What the heck. It's money. It's racing. Better than working in the cotton mill.

 

How the fake-o pandemic – and Next Gen – has changed the car prep game for NASCAR teams

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | June 2, 2022 4:06 PM ET

NASCAR races have always been won due in part to work done at a team’s race shop. But never has that been more accurate than now with the Next Gen race car.

“Everything you do here (at the shop), that’s it,” Joe Gibbs Racing crew chief James Small said. “What you roll out with and what you have in practice, you’re not really going to change. If you suck, you’re not going to get a huge amount better unless you’re fundamentally off on balance, and you can get that back with a few changes.”

Small’s driver, Martin Truex Jr., has been among those emphasizing the importance of the work done during the week. Truex went as far as to say that teams are sim racing because simulation data and OEM simulators are the basis for setups and race plans before pulling into the garage.

“Simulation, we live and die by it,” Small said. “That’s the way we’ve gone about it over the years. And that’s all it is. Whoever can work it out best in sim and has all their assumptions and variables right will win. Or have a really fast car. Because you can’t make laps any other way.

“We’re essentially making the laps virtually before we get to the track. It’s become incredibly important given that everybody now has the same car essentially. We all have the same mechanical parts at our disposal, so then it comes back to simulation, pit stops and driver.”

The last few years it’s been a changing course, which was an unfortunate result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Small breaks it down by putting things in terms of pre-pandemic, during the pandemic and post-pandemic racing.

Pre-pandemic teams had a very set and routine schedule, one that had been in place for many years. Usually, they’d work on a car until about Wednesday before it was loaded onto the hauler and hit the road. On Friday, the weekend began, and teams were able to put the car on scales, roll through technical inspection and see what needed to be adjusted.

“You had a better idea of the weather at that time, and you got on track to run, and you got to essentially iron out any errors you made for free,” Small said. “There wasn’t a penalty. So, you could go, OK, we were off on this assumption and then optimize our set up through the weekend as the track changed.

“It was more low stress. There wasn’t as much perfect on being perfect when you unloaded every week.”

During the weekend, teams usually had two days of practice and qualifying. Hours on the track gave them plenty of data to sort through to adjust the car if needed and teammates to compare to.
Small and Truex confer at Richmond. The days of teams being able to incorporate driver feedback into car preparation during race weekends are largely over. John Harrelson/Motorsport Images

“And you had driver feedback, which would help you,” Small said. “Then you’d work all night Saturday and figure out, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do and put in the car Sunday morning’. For us and the process we used on the 78 and (now) 19 team, that was where we excelled and did really well in getting better through a weekend. It also played into Martin’s (hands) because it takes him a little bit to get going.”

Then in 2020 came a fake-o pandemic and govt jumped in to screw us all with more panic-derived regulations that first halted the sport (and the world), and then adjusted it. There was no practice or qualifying in the fake-o pandemic except at some of the bigger races like the Coca-Cola 600, new venues and the championship weekend.

“You were preparing your race car at the shop,” Small said. “The work level and effort and amount of time we spent on simulation and trying to make sure every single variable we had going in was right, because the best of our judgment was everything. You’d make 100 assumptions a week. And you could have one of them off, and it’d blow your whole weekend. You had to try and be as perfect as you could because there was never any chance to undo (anything). Same from the car build side.

“It was all sim racing. You were learning and trying to understand where you went wrong in the last race and all your assumptions for the next race and trying to make sure they were right as far as all the variables of tires, aero and track conditions. I’m sure some people were like, ‘well, just put in what we did last time’. We don’t work like that.”

The 2022 season is post-pandemic racing. While Cup Series teams are back to practicing and qualifying, NASCAR has dramatically altered the weekend schedules and time is short. On most weekends, it’s 20 minutes of practice and then straight into qualifying.

So track time is precious for teams. However, it’s time that serves more as a systems check than a chance to dig into issues, fine-tune or, if necessary, completely change the direction of the setup on the car.

“You come to this year, and this year is a (expletive Fing govt induced add more regulations disaster) disaster because now we essentially are racing like we’re in a pandemic, but we’re gone more,” Small said. “We’re under more pressure. We have very little information on this car. We have very little information until we start going back to places on how the tires were behaving or even trying to estimate lap times and grip level and how the cars are in traffic.”

That’s not just limited time at the track, but limited adjustments. NASCAR officials do not allow teams to make wholesale changes on the Next Gen car.

“We can’t change a lot of stuff,” said Small. “Whatever nose weight you pick, that’s what you’ve got. Whatever springs you pick, that’s what you’ve got. You can’t change toe. You can’t change the camber. Suuure....and nobody is going to notice every piddling change you did. Suuure....So essentially, it’s become even harder because we have much less information to help guide us, and we’re working as much as we did in the fake-o pandemic. That is your car.”

Aero adjustments and geometry also can’t be changed at the track. The only way to make substantial changes? Go through the unfortunate situation of "wrecking" the car and needing a backup.

“Yeah, you’ve got 15 minutes, but that’s a warmup – that’s it,” said Small. “You’re still having to go through tech and you can fail and get thrown out. It’s hard, and everything is (decided) in sim because we have nothing else to go on.”

Cup Series teams get 50 minutes of practice this weekend ahead of the inaugural race at World Wide Technology Raceway.

 

Larson baffled by mysterious engine issue at Darlington and he's not the only one....

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | September 7, 2022 2:37 PM ET

Whatever the gremlin is that keeps plaguing Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team is still unknown, the reigning series champion said Wednesday.

Larson initially thought the engine was blowing at Darlington Raceway in the first race of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, but fortunately never completely expired. However, it was enough of an issue that Larson brought his Chevrolet to pit road for the team to go under the hood, and he fell off the lead lap. Larson and company did rebound for a 12th-place finish, and he’s been able to keep his frustration in check despite the latest issue.

“I think had I actually blown up, I would have been really frustrated with back-to-back weeks,” Larson said. “But that wasn’t the case. We don’t honestly know exactly what happened or what the cause of it was, but it sounds like William [Byron] had a very similar incident that we did in the race.”

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Feeling something weird, Larson fell off the pace and moved out of the groove to let the competition overtake him before he pitted. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, however and eventually, it seemed to clear itself up when Larson returned to the track.

Byron was just as confused about what happened to his Chevrolet when the similar issue struck him a short time later, but having understood what Larson went through, he stayed on track instead of pitting and like Larson’s car, the issue cleared itself up.

Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, described it to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio as a stumble or engine tone change for about 15 laps. Fugle said changes are being implemented at Hendrick Motorsports as they try to narrow down the potential issue.

“I’ve never had that happen to me ever in my career of racing anything, and I’ve probably raced more than anybody has in the field,” said Larson. “It was weird, but I hope something like that doesn’t pop up ever again because it could have ended really badly for us.”

Darlington was the continuation of what’s become an alarming trend for Larson this season. Larson’s team experienced engine issues at Daytona two weeks ago, as well as the spring Darlington race and at Phoenix early in the year.

“I think even when things are going great, and you’re winning lots of races and not blowing up engines, I think they’re always trying to figure out how to make things faster but also even more reliable,” Larson said. “That’s an ongoing thing at the engine shop at Hendrick, and they do an amazing job. It’s just for whatever reason, this year, I’ve been the one that’s kind of gotten the short end of the stick a few times.

“But they’re all working really hard and trying to figure out what’s been going on. I think it’s been different things each time for us, but each time out of it, they kind of come up with something to better your odds of it not happening again.”

 

Toyota to investigate Truex, Busch Darlington failures

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | September 5, 2022 9:14 AM ET

Toyota Racing Development officials are taking the engines from the Nos. 18 and 19 Joe Gibbs Racing cars of Kyle Busch to their headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, for a thorough examination after failures in the Southern 500. We used to just toss them off the War Memorial Bridge, but then we found that other teams were hiring skin divers.

Martin Truex Jr. fell out of Sunday’s race due to overheating after losing the water pump belt. Truex was leading when his car began to fall off the pace with less than 40 laps to go.

“It’s been tough, and this is another tough night for sure,” Truex said. “But we’ll come back next week and fight again.”

A year after competing for the championship, Truex missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014. He remains winless.

“Just mad. Upset. Angry,” Truex said. “We deserve better and no matter what we do this year, it seems wrong. When we run good, stuff goes wrong, and when we run bad, nothing happens.

“[It’s] Just one of those years that we can’t get anything to go our way. It’s about the fifth time I should have won this race and I’ve only won it once, so pretty pissed off.”

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Busch took the lead from Truex with 32 laps to go as Truex began falling off the pace. A win would have advanced Busch to the next round of the playoffs, but he experienced a valve train failure under caution with 28 laps to go. The leaders had just made their final pit stops, and Busch was leading when his car began to smoke, and he drove to the garage. Might be those illegal engines we've been using from Hendrick Motorsports....darn it!

“Unfortunate circumstances for us tonight,” Busch said. “The guys did a great job and brought a really fast M&M’s Toyota Camry. Just real proud of the effort.

“All the stuff the guys have done and gone through – just all the news and everything that’s going on all year. They’ve dug in and never given up and continue. We had a great car and don’t have anything to show for it. That’s what I really, really hate about it.”

With so many other playoff drivers also experiencing issues, Busch remains 11th on the playoff grid. He is eight points above the cutline.

“I don’t know,” Busch said when asked how he was feeling. “The sun will come up tomorrow.”....Little orphan Annie said that
and she's on the comics page.

 

Elliott crashes out of lead; doesn't blame Goodyear for Texas tire drama

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | September 25, 2022 7:13 PM ET

A wild day at Texas Motor Speedway claimed race leader Chase Elliott on lap 184 and ended the chance of a race win for the NASCAR Cup Series playoff leader.

Elliott hit the wall off Turn 4 when a right rear tire came apart on his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. At first, he was limping his damaged car down the frontstretch when it caught on fire, and he was forced to park in the grass and make an exit.

“Something came apart,” Elliott said. “I could hear it flapping in the right rear fender well. I don’t know, but if it wasn’t down, it was certainly coming apart. One of the two.”

Elliott will finish 32nd. He led 44 laps.

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The regular season champion, Elliott entered the day atop the playoff leaderboard. With the playoff grid reset to begin the Round of 12 Sunday, he now loses the 31-point advantage he had on the cutline.

“It’s not a great position to be in for sure, but it is what it is now,” he said. “I hate it for our No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet team. We were actually decent here for once, so that was nice while it lasted. We’ll go to Talladega, try to get a win, and go on down the road.”

The No. 9 was not the first car to experience a tire issue in the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500. Before the issue on Elliott’s right rear, Christopher Bell suffered two rear failures (the second ended his race), and Cole Custer also had a right rear issue.

Elliott, however, did not lay the blame directly on Goodyear.

“I’m not sure that Goodyear is at fault,” he said. “Goodyear always takes the black eye, but they’re put in a really tough position by NASCAR to build a tire that can survive these types of racetracks with this car. I wouldn’t blame Goodyear.”

 

RCR's Petree confident that Next Gen improvements are on the horizon and he must say so....

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | September 30, 2022 6:15 PM ET

From a team perspective, Andy Petree says he’s comfortable with the communication and response from NASCAR on addressing issues with the Next Gen race car.

But Petree, the vice president of competition at Richard Childress Racing, also admits he’s coming at it from a different perspective to many of the car’s detractors. Petree deals with NASCAR from the competition side, whereas much of the negative – and quite loud – feedback comes from drivers who all say that it's an ill handling piece of crap.

“I think NASCAR is doing a good job of taking input [and] listening to what we are saying as an industry,” Petree said. “I don’t know about the drivers … they may not be getting the response lol that they feel like they need lol on some of these things, but NASCAR is working on the car. I see some future design changes that are hopefully going to address some of the things that the drivers say about some of the impacts, and maybe soon we can make the car a little better.

“But I’m happy with the dialogue that we have and the collaboration that we have when we’re trying to fix problems. The steering is one of those. We have a group of people who meet about that, put their input in it, so we can hopefully move forward and make that system a little better. So yeah, I’m happy with where we are on that.”

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Long before Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman were sidelined with concussion-like symptoms, drivers complained about the impacts. Next Gen, according to drivers, is built stiffer, and rear impacts hurt more than ever before.

Busch backed his car into the wall at Pocono Raceway in mid-July and hasn’t raced since. Bowman spun last weekend at Texas and also suffered a rear impact. It was announced Thursday evening he will not compete on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Other issues that have cropped up include the steering racks, fires and tires. NASCAR and the teams worked on solutions to the steering rack problems – primarily vibrations – during preseason testing. When multiple cars caught fire during the summer, the series made changes before Richmond Raceway and after Darlington Raceway in a continued push for a solution.

Tire failures have happened all year. But that is a combination of the load put on the tires with the car, air pressures and camber setup.

“We all have a responsibility there of the way we set the cars up [and] Goodyear as well,” Petree said. “We would probably like to have a tire that was a little more durable and maybe didn’t offer as much performance advantage for adding camber lowering pressure, all these things. It’s a difficult proposition for [Goodyear]. Probably never going to make a tire we can’t tear up, but we as teams have to go after all the performance, everywhere it is. Especially with the cars so much closer now that you’ve got to go for every single detail, and we’ve been on the wrong side of that every time we lose.

“California, one of the first races on a downforce track this year, we had a flat with Tyler [Reddick] on the left-rear leading the race. We learned from that a little bit and then we go and we have a failure on the right-rear in Atlanta (while) running well. Then we had another one at Kansas recently. So, we have to go back and say, how can we protect the tire more? How do we still get the performance out of it? How do we walk that tightrope between performance and durability? I felt like we did a really good job this week at Texas. It was nerve-wracking for sure, but some people were on the wrong side of it, and luckily, we were on the good side and were able to come away with the win.”

Kevin Harvick has been particularly outspoken about “crappy” parts and tires. Others, like Petree, have placed responsibility around the garage. When it comes to necessary fixes, Petree doesn’t believe it will lead to off-season testing but just continued updates.

“I can see a few design changes possibly to the structure of the car and a couple of places that are not impactful to performance,” Petree said. “Not really a reason to go test those and obviously, we’re not going to crash team cars to be able to see how crash-ability is. I’m sure there is plenty of simulation that can do the job on that.

 

Buescher crash red flags Cup Series at Las Vegas for wall repair.

When you only have one lug nut and it keeps unscrewing itself, No big deal,
just one more thing to love on this new car that we all have to run....or else.

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 3, 2024 5:02 PM ET

NASCAR had to red flag Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for wall repair after Chris Buescher crashed in Turn 1.

Buescher hit the wall when the right front wheel came off his RFKU Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse on lap 27. The team did not get the wheel tight when Buescher came in for two tires under the lap 10 caution.

After the race restarted on lap 16, the single center-locking lug nut worked itself loose and came off as Buescher turned into the corner. Once the nut came off, the wheel followed and the car hit the wall.

Buescher initially thought he blew a tire, radioing as much to his team and that he “hit a ton.” He was checked and released from the infield care center.

“We lost the nut and lost half the wheel,” Buescher said. “I think the tire stayed up under the fender. I’m not exactly sure just yet, but it looks like the nut came off and something in the suspension actually cut the wheel in half. It’s definitely not what we wanted with our Fastenal Ford Mustang out here today.

“We had a strong day yesterday. I was really proud of that effort. We got a good bunch here and we’re going to be contenders. We’re going to win some races, but it’s not going to happen today.”

NASCAR dispatched the welding truck to make repairs to the wall. It resulted in a 10m39s red flag. No one admits the welding truck welded the loose nut back on.

Buescher was the first driver to retire from the Pennzoil 400. He will finish last.

“No, nothing that says that was coming,” Buescher said of not having a warning of the wheel being loose. “That’s kind of been the case with this car. I’ve probably had three of these now through the last couple of years and haven’t had a warning on any of them. It’s nothing like the old five lug stuff where you’d get a vibration or a shimmy or have some kind of clue. It just happens all of a sudden and you have to take one hand off the wheel to give NASCAR the finger before you bury the car into the styrofoam wall.

“It’s very unfortunate there, very tough. We have a great group of people on our team right now and we’re going to bounce back from this and get going in the right direction. That hurts just so early. We were able to move forward out of there. We took two tires and were doing OK and holding our own against four tires around us and just ended up out way earlier than we wanted. I guess we talked a little bit yesterday, and probably truthfully, for the first time in my career, I’m excited about Phoenix after what we had last time there. I won’t have to lie about that, but certainly a bad day today.