Elton Sawyer says NASCAR needs to 'work harder' to improve short track racing package

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

Sawyer’s comments come on the heels of this past Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, in which drivers struggled to complete passes and the race lacked in excitement for the majority of the 400 laps and overtime period.

🛞 "We are working as hard as we can with Goodyear, and we need to work harder."

🔧 #NASCAR's Elton Sawyer says the sanctioning body is working daily to improve the short track product.

Full Interview → https://t.co/WGRTG5gVtL pic.twitter.com/orczjio1IL

— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) April 9, 2024

“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,” Sawyer said. “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.”

Denny Hamlin frustrated with lack of passing in NASCAR Next Gen car: ‘We can’t even reach the bumper’

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.

Denny Hamlin, who finished P11 at Martinsville, took issue with the lack of passing during the race.

“So, now you’ve not only created the Next Gen of cars, you created a Next Gen of drivers that all drive the same,” Hamlin said. “Because it’s clear the optimum way to drive it. So, how are you going to create passing? You will not. At the end of that race, I was trying my damnedest to knock Austin Cindric out of the way. He was holding me up bad. I don’t know how many laps down he was, maybe one, maybe two. Anyway, he was laps down in the middle of guys battling for a race win. I couldn’t get to him to knock him out of the way. I’m trying to knock this guy up the racetrack. I can’t do it. Can’t reach him. So instead, I have to just sit behind him and let the laps just go away.

“And so, that is a problem. That’s why we don’t have the cautions, the wrecks, anything that we used to have from back in the day. We can’t even reach the bumper of the cars. The racing needs to be fixed. … If we sit back and do nothing, then shame on us. We deserve whatever’s coming to us in the long run.”