Kyle Petty doesn’t believe ‘tweaks’ will fix Next Gen car: ‘We gotta swing a big bat’

Much of the conversation in the aftermath of this past Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway has been focused on how to fix short track racing in the Next Gen car.

Drivers struggled to pass at Martinsville and the race overall lacked in excitement for the 400 laps plus overtime period. Many in the sport, including Joey Logano, have offered ideas this week on how to fix the Next Gen car, but Kyle Petty doesn’t believe any tweaks are gonna fix anything.

Speaking on Eric Estepp’s “Out of the Groove” podcast this week, Petty said it’s time for NASCAR to take a big swing.

“Tweaks aren’t gonna fix it,” Petty said. “Tweaks are not gonna fix anything. We gotta swing a big bat. We gotta make some big changes. We’ve talked about short tracks ever since this car came about. Just not giving us what we want on the short track. But I go back, and I ask the question: Is it the car? Or is it the parity? Is it that all the cars can go out and run within 15/100th or 2/10ths of each other?

“Listen, even on the highway you have slow cars that run in the right lane. And fast cars that run in the left lane. You have to have it to make traffic go. If everybody runs the same speed, it just becomes a train and that’s what people are complaining about. Because when we go to Martinsville, when we go to these shorter tracks, we see the train effect. I can’t say that it’s all the car, can’t say that it’s all the tracks and I can’t say that it’s all on the rules. I can’t say that it’s all of one thing.”

NASCAR working with new short track package

NASCAR debuted a new aero package for short tracks and road courses in the Cup Series this season. The new package includes a simplified diffuser on the Next Gen car, the elimination of engine panel strakes, more simplified diffuser strakes and a 3-inch spoiler. Thus far, three racetracks have used the package: Phoenix Raceway, Richmond Raceway and Martinsville.

The one short track race this season which didn’t use the new short track package, was the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. In that race, tire wear was extreme, which drew favorable reviews from drivers and fans.

Elton Sawyer says NASCAR needs to ‘work harder’ to improve short track racing package in Next Gen car

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, admitted Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the sanctioning body needs to “work harder” on improving the racing at short tracks.

“We’re not naive to this,” Sawyer said. “We as NASCAR want our short track package to be better. We want that racing to be at the level that superspeedways and our intermediate racetracks are today. I promise you we are working as hard as we can with Goodyear, and we need to work harder. That’s the bottom line. We need to work harder to come to a place, whereas I said a couple of weeks ago, we need to figure out how to bottle up what we learned at Bristol and also what we learned the first 30 laps at Richmond last week on how that race unfolded. The tires and the way they wear and the way the drivers have to manage that tire wear and the tire fall off is really what we’re trying to achieve.

“When you can go out on any track, especially short tracks, and you can run it at 10/10ths and the equipment will take it and the tire will take, then you’re taking all the skill set out away from the driver. I promise you, I promise our fans that we are working daily to continue to try to come up with a tire that will give us the short track racing that we’re all looking for. … It’s not a one-tire fits all type solution, so we have to continue to work. We’re not resting on anything that we did yesterday. Today, we’re going to be digging on this again and working on solutions and trying to get to a better place.”