BrandPost: NASCAR’s Next Gen Race Car Proven Safe by Simulation
NASCAR’s 2018 announcement that it would develop a new type of race car, called Next Gen, which would be used as a platform by all race teams in the NASCAR Cup Series, predictably raised some eyebrows and caused an outcry among race teams and fans of the sport. With all the things that could potentially go wrong in designing a new race car, why take the risk? And why throw away decades of innovations created by engineers, mechanics, and drivers to optimize their car’s performance?
But NASCAR officials had their reasons. Fan attendance at racetracks was down, and the stock cars that raced under the banner of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) now bore little resemblance to the actual stock cars rolling off assembly lines and into dealerships around the world. In fact, though they were touted as the latest in automotive engineering, the race cars were using highly modified versions of automotive technologies of the 1960s and ’70s, tweaked for ever greater performance by engineers over the years.