NASCAR insider: Next Gen car 'sucks on short tracks'

Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway left a ton to be desired. Kyle Larson put up a dominating performance, leading 411 of 500 laps and sweeping both stages, but there wasn’t any heart-stopping action that we’ve become accustomed to seeing at the short-track.

That’s been the issue at short-tracks throughout the NASCAR schedule since the Next Gen car made its debut in the Cup Series. NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck believes it’s high-time a change is made, and he didn’t pull his punches when evaluating yesterday’s race in Tennessee.

“I don’t think you can fix it with this car. This car is not designed for short-track racing,” Gluck stated, via The Teardown. “They’ve tried a bunch of stuff. You can say, ‘Well, if they only added more horsepower. If they only did this.’ It’s this car. It’s the car. The car sucks on short-tracks. Sorry. … I don’t think it’s just the butt-kicking. I don’t think it’s about one guy leading a bunch of laps that I’m upset about. It’s that nothing happened in the race. You know, like — nothing really happened. Especially considering it’s Bristol, where the whole reputation here is about helmet throwing and aggressiveness and all the crazy stuff.

“… Something’s got to change. If everybody says it’s too hard to change or whatever, then just don’t go there, because that’s what you’re doing at this point. You’re just saying, I mean, because otherwise you’re saying, ‘I’m OK with putting out a crap product and trying to convince people to come out there and watch this,’ and because this is — what’s changing? What is on the horizon here that’s going to change? So if you’re trying to convince people to come out and just hope it gets better, good luck.”

As Gluck alluded to, Bristol and other short-tracks like Martinsville have been some of NASCAR’s premier destinations over their history. However, fans are tuning in and coming out less and less due to the racing they’re seeing. It’s simply not a good product when the schedule reads short-track for the Cup Series since the Next Gen car debuted.

What’s the solution? Gluck isn’t sure, but the tire wear seemed like a promising avenue to explore over the last year and change. However, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be a full-scale fix, at least not at the moment.

At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to fixing the Next Gen car, and if NASCAR has the money and patience to get it done. Time will tell what the future holds for Bristol and short-track racing as a whole, but changes must be made — it’s never been more obvious.