Denny Hamlin watched the Xfinity Series opener after racing in the Daytona 500, and noticed some key differences in NASCAR’s top two series.
Much has been made about the way the Next Gen car races on super-speedways, compared to the way the Gen-6 raced over previous seasons. Some have enjoyed the change, but a majority of drivers haven’t been pleased.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin did a deep dive on the subject, actually likening the racing in the Xfinity Series to the Cup Series when they used the Gen-6 cars.
“It’s a different world now than it used to be,” Hamlin said, regarding the differences in the two series. “Next Gen racing is entirely different than what Gen-6 racing was. The Xfinity cars are racing like Gen-6 cars were, so there’s a bubble. We talk about this all the time, that there was a bubble. Here’s your NASCAR 101 for the week. What we call the bubble is when a car comes up behind another car, it pushed the front car forward. So in the Next Gen, there’s not much of a bubble. What that means is that the car behind, you have to make contact for you to really push that car forward. The Xfinity Series car, and the previous Gen-6 Cup car, all you had to do was get somewhat close. Get within a two, three foot — kind of, in the Xfinity cars it looks like the bubble is like five foot. But once you get to that bubble, it pushes. It’s like a balloon that’s not fully inflated, and when you push on it, it’s now pushing the front bumper of that lead car. So that’s why you see the big runs that you get in Xfinity, without making contact.
“They don’t have to make contact. They just use the bubble to push. … It’s just very, very different. Which is why we all run in a tighter pack. Why we’re able to run 30% throttle, and be able to hang on in the Cup Series, in a draft. Which is part of the problem of what we saw on Monday.”
Perhaps that’s why we’ve seen many drivers struggle when they move up to the Cup Series right away, especially on drafting tracks. Regardless, it’s evident NASCAR might have a problem on their hands, if the reactions of their drivers after Daytona are any indicator.
Time will tell if the sport decides to make any changes, but Denny Hamlin has highlighted some key issues over the last couple of days on the matter.
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