NASCAR CEO ignores frustrations with troubled Next-Gen car during annual address

NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell has said all of the right things since he became chief executive of the most prestigious stock car racing league in the world in April.

But on Friday, giving NASCAR's annual "State of The Sport" address, he did what the previous regimes of Steve Phelps and Brian France did: dismissed the frustrations of fans and instead tried to paint a pretty picture.

"At the end of the day, I’m not naïve," O'Donnell said in his opening statement. "I know our fans care about great racing. They care about the drivers. They care about the experience at the track. We want them to keep watching. We want them to come back and bring somebody new to a race as well."

Asked about NASCAR's Next-Gen car, which has been criticized by both drivers and fans for its dependance on aerodynamics and a racing product that especially suffered at superspeedways and short tracks, O'Donnell somewhat skirted around the question. In a follow-up, he was asked if NASCAR had begun development on a Gen-8 Cup Series vehicle.

What Steve O'Donnell said about Next-Gen car

"Let’s look at this industry and why we went to this car," O'Donnell said. "We were on a pathway where there was very limited ownership. Teams were car manufacturers. There were no new OEMs that came into the sport. There were no conversations. In fact, it was the opposite. If you guys don’t do anything, we’re not sure this is sustainable. So I think it’s important to go back and look at the Next-Gen car and why it was put together.

"You have a different model. You have many new owners that have come into the sport. You have an ownership landscape that is much healthier than it was before. You have Dodge entering the sport. You have other OEMs who are looking at it. You have pretty good racing. The facts when you look at those compared to other sports are pretty strong. So I think it’s important to look at what changes can you tweak along the way. But for us, we want a sustainable model for the industry."

To its credit, NASCAR has lured another manufacturer into the sport, with Dodge announcing Monday that it will be back on the Cup Series grid with Kaulig Racing in 2027. But the issues with the Next-Gen's racing product remains: the car is more sensitive to dirty air and so-called "aero-blocking" than ever before, which has turned off many diehard fans.

"A Gen 8 or a Next-Gen car comes with all kinds of costs and all kinds of different things," O'Donnell said. "So I’m confident in our guys and the industry and the OEMs to tweak what we have where necessary, but also be pretty confident in our drivers going out there and having the ability to go win races and put on some pretty darned good competition."

NASCAR hasn't sat on its hands entirely, making changes to the superspeedway package and increasing horsepower at tracks under 1.5 miles this season in an effort to improve the racing. But the fact that a Gen-8 car does not appear to be in development given the frustrations with the Next-Gen is disheartening. 

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.