Will NASCAR use the Next Gen car at Bristol Dirt?

Wade Payne

     Last week after the inaugural Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, it was surprisingly announced that the dirt race would return to the NASCAR schedule in 2022. With next year marking the beginning of the vastly different Gen-7 car, it has become a question: Will the NASCAR use the NextGen car at Bristol Dirt?

First let’s talk about the Next Gen car and what NASCAR plans to do with it. Well, NASCAR’s goal with the Next Gen car is to cut costs for teams, making it far more easy for a race team to operate on a budget. There are a few ways that NASCAR plans to do this. One of the ways is that the Gen-7 car will be universally the same car, regardless of team, or manufacturer. This means the cars will all use the similar or the same parts (aside from engines). Another way that that NASCAR plans to cut costs with the Gen-7 car is by implementing a composite body style (like the NASCAR Xfinity Series has used for multiple seasons). This composite body will be far more flexible, and can tolerate more contact without sustaining damage. Both of these factors, in theory, should allow race teams to require fewer race cars at any given time during the Gen-7 era. In the short run, research and development for the Next Gen car might cost a little bit more, but in the long run the Gen-7 car should (hopefully) be money saving masterpiece. 

For many reasons, the 2021 Bristol Dirt races were not especially cost effective. For starters, Speedway Motorsports had to bring in 2,300 truck loads of dirt to turn Bristol Motor Speedway, which is normally a short track, into a dirt track. The dirt and labor required to do this, was definitely not a cheap endeavor. Then comes the actual racing. Many of NASCAR’s professional drivers just aren’t dirt track racers, and because of that, we saw quite a few collisions during the dirt races. That ultimately led to destroyed, or heavily damaged vehicles, calculating only a loss for those teams involved. 

So if NASCAR’s goal with the Next Gen car is to save money, and Bristol Dirt is widely considered to be somewhat destructive, will NASCAR run the Gen-7 car  at next season’s Food City Dirt Race? My guess, which is as good as any, is that they will run the Gen-7 car at Bristol Dirt, though doing so will only further set them back in the cost cutting measures. 

Many of racing fans have suggested that NASCAR should run the current Gen-6 car at the 2022 Food City Dirt Race, considering everything we know about modern day NASCAR racing on dirt has been seen with those cars. This thought is not one that I would easily dismiss, as there is already proof of the Gen-6 car’s ability on dirt, and it would refrain from teams damaging the new Gen-7 car. Since NASCAR teams still currently use the Gen-6 car, it shouldn’t be hard for them to get their hands on one of them for a singular race. As optimistic as this idea may sound, I cannot imagine that NASCAR will look at the situation in the same light.

Now I’ve only scratched the surface on this topic, and clearly as we progress closer to the 2022 season and Bristol Dirt races, we will have more to discuss. Based on what we know now, what are your thoughts on the Next Gen car running the Food City Dirt Race? Let us know in the comments below!