NASCAR is halfway through year three of the Next Gen car era, a car specifically designed to level the playing field.
While parity was the goal and there has been some, the well-established teams such as Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have continued to rise to the top. Drivers from those three teams have combined to win 15-of-18 races this season, with Penske winning each of the past two championships.
Chris Gabehart, Denny Hamlin’s crew chief, said on Kevin Harvick’s “Happy Hour” podcast this week that the reason the best teams continue to find their way forward is because the revisions of the car have made it “too easy” on them.
Chris Gabehart discusses parity in Next Gen era
“When I look at the stated goal of parity, and that is every driver for every team can buy the same parts and have the same opportunity to go win a race, I think that’s a great stated goal,” Gabehart said. “The problem is physics gets in the way. And the car that’s leading is gonna have an advantage over the car that’s in second and it’s quantifiable. And then so on and so forth throughout the rest of the field. If you can’t overcome that disadvantage, then what you’re actually doing is handcuffing all the drivers and all the teams into an execution battle. It simply becomes a race of QC — Monday through Sunday.
“So, in my view what we’ve gotta do is we gotta make it harder. I think whether it’s more horsepower, smaller footprint on the tires which I think we could do by the way. All of the revisions that we’ve made to this car, how big a deal would it be to make a two-inch narrow wheel from the inside and make the footprint on the tire smaller. We simply have a horsepower grip ratio imbalance. Knocked out 100 horsepower. We went to a wider tire, went to independent rear suspension, we increased grip, decreased horsepower. That’s too easy for you. That’s too easy for the race teams. And therefore, the physics disadvantage from however you line up on the track given the scenario, is harder to overcome.
“Now, you do see the best teams still finding their way forward. It’s interesting, I take a survey every week of how you park in the garage. How you park in the garage every week kind of gives you a litmus test for how you are doing. I had two Hendrick cars to my left, one to my right, two Toyotas to the right of that one. Pretty telling that the best teams are still finding their way to the front. But the optics are it’s harder than ever to pass. And I think it’s just because it’s a little bit too easy.”
Chris Gabehart sums up Denny Hamlin’s 2024 season
One of those teams which routinely runs up front is the No. 11 team. Hamlin has three victories this season and currently sits third in the points standings. Though the recent results haven’t been there, Gabehart likes where they’re at midway through the 2024 campaign.
“I think we’re executing at a really high level in terms of running capability. But as you mentioned, in the Gen 7 era now more than ever, mistakes just cannot be tolerated by the driver, by the team, by the circumstance on the racetrack,” Gabehart said. “Maybe it’s not even of your own doing, but if it drags you into it, it’s so hard to recover from. I think we’re right where we need to be and that we’re capable of really good days, we just gotta be able to execute them all the way out.”
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