Unwrapping NASCAR’s Growing Concussion Issue
The 2022 NASCAR season has brought along a lot of change, and not all of it has been good. From loose wheels and crew chief suspensions to flat tires and severe crashes, the transition to the Next Gen car hasn’t been a smooth one. As the playoffs carry on, though, a more serious issue has now arisen—concussions.
As we all know, concussions have entered the spotlight more than ever over the last two decades in the sporting world, and NASCAR hasn’t been immune to it. With the introduction of the Next Gen car this year, drivers unfortunately seem to be at greater risk than ever before, as both Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman have now missed multiple races in the Cup Series due to concussions. Other drivers have suffered injuries as well, like Cody Ware, who was left with a fractured ankle after his hard crash at Texas a few weeks ago.
This issue of safety and well-being has become such a massive concern that Denny Hamlin has openly called for NASCAR to chuck the Next Gen car in the bin and redo it from square one.
“The car needs to be redesigned; it needs a full redesign. It can still be called Next Gen, but it needs to be redesigned everywhere—front, middle, rear, competition. The whole thing needs to be redesigned. We’ve got a Martinsville race coming up and it’s going to be tough. This thing is going to be exposed... and that’s just part of it.”
Other drivers have expressed concerns as well, especially after Alex Bowman became the second driver to suffer an accident that resulted in a head injury. Bowman reported over the radio that it was the hardest hit he’d ever taken in a Cup car, raising concerns over the way these new machines can absorb certain impacts, notably from the rear. Last weekend, NASCAR announced that a new rear clip and rear bumper structure would undergo crash tests to see if improvements can be made. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr.—a well-respected voice in the NASCAR world if there ever was one—has directed a lot of the blame toward the massive foam headrests that are used.
Between losing his own career and his father to head injuries suffered from accidents, I’d like to think Dale Jr. knows a thing or two about this subject matter. My biggest hope, though, is that a resolution can be found and we can stop holding our breath every time we see a car spinning out on a mile-and-a-half track or superspeedway.