NASCAR Teams Reportedly Shot Down Innovative Idea for All-Star Race
What’s Happening? In a recent podcast, mechanic and writer Bozi Tatarevic revealed he had heard a rumor that NASCAR Cup Series…
In the latest episode of NASCAR’s in-house podcast, Hauler Talk, Mike Forde, NASCAR’s Managing Director of Racing Communications, called out Denny Hamlin’s recent comments that a NASCAR All-Star Race format proposed by NASCAR would have cost teams $2 million.
During his latest episode of Actions Detrimental, 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin discussed his perspective on the financial side of NASCAR’s proposed “Run What Ya Brung” NASCAR All-Star Race format. The three-time Daytona 500 Champion explained that costs could reach $2 million, far from the minuscule $1 million prize for winning the race.
This proposed format would have allowed teams to race in the All-Star event with a car ready to race however they wanted it, as long as it passed safety inspection. This proposal would have made the All-Star Race a must-watch and could have led to a new breakthrough in fixing the NASCAR Next Gen car’s poor short-track racing product. However, team owners shut down this idea.
Following Monday’s episode, Denny’s estimation was the talk of the NASCAR community. Now, a NASCAR employee is claiming that this number is not entirely accurate. Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications and a co-host of the sport’s in-house podcast, Hauler Talk, promoted their latest episode by posting it on X.
This preview of the subjects at hand did not go past Hamlin, who responded, “Oh it cost us nothing to run a raceteam now. Whew, this business is easier than I thought. BTW, Great stats on Sunday!” While this may seem ridiculous, Forde did, in fact, claim, “I think his math was off by about $2 million, but what it actually could cost is zero dollars or potentially save teams money.”
What’s Happening? In a recent podcast, mechanic and writer Bozi Tatarevic revealed he had heard a rumor that NASCAR Cup Series…
Hamlin claimed in his podcast that his three-car team would spend roughly $300,000 as they would “destroy” each car for this one exhibition race. That, combined with another million in the cost of making the parts and pieces for their car, is how he came to his rough figure of $2 million.
On Hauler Talk, Mike Forde states that teams were not allowed to modify their chassis, but they could not modify or even build any parts; rather, the proposed format was more like combining different pieces of a Lego set. Teams were still limited to the strict “single-source part” rules of the Next Gen Car.
“You cannot build new parts,” Forde said. “You can’t create any new parts. Everything still had to be single-sourced. But there was a list of things that we were going to allow teams to do.”
Forde listed a few of NASCAR’s proposed rules:
*NASCAR was going to enforce total and right-side weight rules
However, Forde claims that utilizing what he referred to as “hand-me-down” body panels could have saved NASCAR teams money in this race.
“Why I said teams actually probably could have saved money on this idea is if you didn’t want to do anything, if you wanted to not come up with any idea. . . What you could have done is use body panels that probably aren’t race-ready for a Talladega or a Coke 600, but probably too good for a show car, and use it for the All-Star Race.” — Mike Forde
However, after saying this, Forde also stated, “They probably wouldn’t do that, but they could if they wanted to.”
What’s Happening? On this week’s episode of Actions Detrimental, 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin discussed the financial burden teams would have…
What do you think about this? Let us know your opinion on Discord or X. Don’t forget that you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
