Amid Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin Face Offs, NASCAR Insider Reveals “Mistakes” Around Driver Safety In The Next-Gen Cars

The entirety of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Championship was plagued by safety issues being raised by the drivers. It was only when drivers like Kurt Busch had to let go of their racing altogether and Kevin Harvick and co-spoke out directly to the media that NASCAR started to listen. Now, Jeff Burton states that the cooperation between the drivers and NASCAR has increased significantly and that it is now paying off well.

During an interview, Burton stated, “We made a lot of progress in identifying issues and working hard to alleviate those, and the communication the last month has gotten much, much better.”

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NASCAR has now already run a few crash tests at undisclosed locations and says that they plan on bringing in those changed to the car for the 2023 season. Following multiple concussion-related injuries, the organizing body is also working on the cockpit head-surround aspect.

Burton also added that there were several misunderstandings regarding the safety and the way these cars had been built. He further stated that NASCAR never built a car with the intention that it would result in causing harm to its very own occupants. He added, that NASCAR has been working on all of the complaints and issues that they have heard of so far and will come up with a fix soon.

Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin also criticized NASCAR for drivers’ safety

Multiple drivers, such as Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Kevin Harvick had stepped forward to mention their views on how NASCAR had been handling driver safety.

A few weeks ago, Elliott had stated, “I just hate to see us go backward, and I’m afraid that we have.” On the other hand, Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Denny Hamlin also put out a strongly worded tweet aimed at NASCAR. In his tweet, he mentioned, “Pretty disappointing that our sanctioning body refuses to acknowledge or accept any responsibility for drivers getting hurt. It’s the same THEY said. WE knew better. It’s wrong these drivers continue to get taken advantage of by the system.”

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It was possible that only after these drivers decided to openly speak about issues such as safety problems, NASCAR decided to listen to them better and make sure that all the drivers were heard well enough. At the end of the day, no one wants to see a driver injured because the sanctioning body did not do anything. It is definitely good to hear that the drivers are now being heard and that NASCAR will be bringing out changes on the basis of the feedback to the Next-Gen cars before the 2023 season commences.