After Bitter Rivals Chase Elliott & Denny Hamlin Combined to Call Out NASCAR, Official Concedes: “We Will Be Obviously Engaged With the Drivers…”

There is nothing like a battle between the old and the new—fresh blood trying to dislodge those who have been around for a while. Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin’s rivalry was something along those lines. Until they found something they both disliked more than each other.

Their feud had been brewing for some time until it finally unraveled at the Martinsville Speedway in 2017. Elliot was leading the race with just three laps remaining when Hamlin touched his bumper, causing the HMS driver to spin out of contention. As the ghosts of five year past have slowly faded into oblivion, the two drivers finally found something common to criticize—the Next Gen car.

Both drivers have been vociferous critics of the Next Gen car, and have time and again come out in public to speak about its lack of safety. While NASCAR hasn’t been very welcoming of these views, there are some other criticisms they might be open to remedying.

NASCAR is ready to listen

Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President Competition, Scott Miller, reportedly said, “We’re going to continue to meet with the drivers, there have been a few things come up about different ways that we could look at things. 

“The starts and restarts, potentially, one of the suggestions from the drivers was to lengthen the restart zone and then you couldn’t really anticipate when the leader was gonna take off quite as easy with the longer restart zones. Some things on pulling up to pit and making sure the leader has the advantage that they earned on the race track coming down pit road.

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A few things like that but we will be obviously engaged with the drivers and our internal crew along the way as we develop plans for that.”

While Miller made sure he doesn’t promise anything, NASCAR being open to changes is good news for all drivers and fans.

What are Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin’s views?

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The Next-Gen car has largely been criticized since its introduction and is yet to find a lot of support among NASCAR drivers. Elliott and Hamlin, in particular, have been quite vocal in their criticisms. 

Hamlin’s most seething attack came after the Darlington incident. In Darlington, without any crash or external factors acting on the car, his vehicle caught fire. It was a scary incident as the fire spread very quickly with the driver managing to escape just in the nick of time. Angry about the incident, he said, “The car needs to be redesigned. It needs a full redesign. It can still be called Next Gen, but it still needs to be redesigned.” 

He added further, “It’s tough. We brought up these concerns with NASCAR last winter. We threw up red flags over a year ago, and they just didn’t respond. They just kept pushing that this car has got to be on the race track at all costs. At all costs.”

Similarly, Elliott had remarked, “These types of incidents that result in injuries … I’m not a doctor, but I’ve watched a lot of cars back into the wall and the guy would be fine. No one’s immune to it. It could be me next week. It could be any of my peers or fellow competitors. I just hate to see us go backward, and I’m afraid that we have.”

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Without top-class drivers, the sport ceases to exist; and if NASCAR can’t keep them happy or convinced about their safety, anger and frustration are bound to fester.