After this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International, Denny Hamlin believes fan disapproval of the Next Gen car is reaching “hate levels” that haven’t been seen in the sport in nearly two decades. Hamlin compared the fan dislike of the Next Gen car to that of the original Car of Tomorrow with the wing.
“I think that we have a fundamental car problem. It is no doubt a problem. Everyone that has ever driven it has said it’s a problem,” Hamlin said on Monday’s Actions Detrimental podcast. “I believe that the Next Gen car is reaching hate levels of the COT (Car of Tomorrow) with the wing. From fans — I think they’re starting to dislike this car as much as the drivers that have to drive it.”
The COT, which succeeded the popular Generation 4, was used in the Cup Series from 2007-2012. It was unpopular amongst fans and drivers, and NASCAR introduced the Generation 6 in 2013. In 2022, the Next Gen car was born.
We’re now in year four of the seventh-generation car, and it hasn’t exactly become a favorite of both fans and drivers. Its performance on short tracks and road courses has been panned, though it generally produces entertaining racing on intermediate tracks.
Denny Hamlin: NASCAR ‘has made some horrible decisions’
Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen left many fans frustrated, leading to Hamlin’s comments. As he sees it, NASCAR “has made some horrible decisions” over the years. He wonders if those decisions are beginning to catch up.
“We’ve just steadily progressed our way back and back and back and back and taken horsepower away more and more and more,” Hamlin said. “These are 10th floor decisions and let’s just say us drivers are on the third floor. No business is immune to bad decisions. I think that the NASCAR business has made some horrible decisions over the last given amount of time and eventually, it catches up.
“You can’t just say, ‘This is the direction I wanna go.’ ‘Well, why?’ ‘Well, this is the direction I wanna go,’ and not eventually have to pay for that. You’re going to have to pay for your bad decisions at some point. And this could be said for lots of things that have happened in those offices. We’ll just see how it goes.”
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