NASCAR Next Gen test wraps up with mixed results
NASCAR concluded a two-day test of the Next Gen car at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Wednesday evening. Kurt Busch and Martin Truex, Jr. were the test drivers. Comments from NASCAR:
John Probst on the Charlotte test
It’s been a long three days at Charlotte – it started Monday with the road course test which we felt went really well. Both drivers were very complimentary of how the cars handled with the increased brakes and sequential shifter, it was pretty much anticipated that they’d like that over what we have today.
Tuesday wasn’t on track but nonetheless was a really important day for us – it was the first time we took two cars and converted them from road course spec to oval spec.
We got through a lot of really good data for Goodyear. We feel like we have enough data to make a suggestion for the tire when we come back here in 2022 – we have to keep that in mind, we’re still more than a year out from this car making its debut.
Feedback today frankly wasn’t as good as it was on the road course. We collected a significant amount of data from the last three days that we’ll start going through at 8:00 tomorrow morning at the R&D Center. We’ll figure out what modifications we need to make. We’ll enlist the help of our OEMs and teams to help us make the right decisions here as we finalize the design of this car in the next few months.
John Probst on having two previous champions testing
Anytime you get the opportunity to have somebody like Kurt (Busch) and Martin (Truex Jr.) in the car – veterans that have driven not just the current car, but previous generations – they provide a good historical perspective for you. Whenever you bring out a new model with a car of the complexity that we’re working on today, there is a whole mental shift that has to happen in regards to what changes are important to how the car handles. It’s always good when you can get veterans in the car that you can use as a guidepost to keep you going in the right direction. They did a phenomenal job for us; we couldn’t ask for anything more.
John Probst on future test plans
Next up for us is to bring the P3 car to Daytona (International Speedway) on December 15 and 16. It will be single car runs which will be important as we start to tune in the drag and power levels we’re going to need to run the speeds we want to run there.
Beyond that, we’re working on a tire test plan with Goodyear right now. That will likely have seven or eight tests for 2021. The OEMs are currently wrapping up the builds of their own vehicles and we will look to start Wheel Force Transducer (WFT) testing in March with all three cars on the track together.
— NASCAR —