You have to applaud NASCAR for their dedication to ensuring the racing package for this new Next Gen model delivers. They’re leaving no stone unturned.

We’re 55 races into this car and a glaring deficiency for it right now is the short track package. NASCAR isn’t about to sit back and let the teams figure it out, so after another season of ho-hum racing with this package, they’ll go back to the drawing board next week in conducting a two-day test in Loudon.

This weekend is about the now for the Crayon 301 (2:30 p.m. ET, USA, PRN). The two days after are for the future as Christopher Bell, Harrison Burton, William Byron, Justin Haley, Ryan Preece and Erik Jones will stay behind and test at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

NASCAR has some items they want to test including a new splitter.

See, last year the racing was pretty poor on these tracks. So, NASCAR adjusted rightfully reacted and adjusted.

They adopted a new Road Course and Selected Short Track Package for 2023 which consisted of the following:

1. 2” Spoiler
2. Remove Engine Panel Strakes
3. Remove Center and Inner Diffuser Strakes. Only the Outer Diffuser Strakes will remain installed. Spacers will be installed between the diffuser flap and diffuser due to removing the inner diffuser strakes. 
4. Remove Diffuser Fences and Replace with Baseline Fences.
5. Splitter stuffers will remain unchanged from the current components.

The package features slight modifications to the Next Gen car that significantly decrease the downforce created by the vehicles. This configuration will be utilized at all tracks where “wet weather equipment” will be required: Charlotte Roval, Chicago Street Course, Circuit of The Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, Martinsville, New Hampshire, North Wilkesboro, Phoenix, Richmond, Sonoma and Watkins Glen.

Chief among the changes are a two-inch rear spoiler (a reduction from the current four-inch blade on the rear deck lid) in addition to several tweaks underneath the car. Those include the removal of three diffuser strakes, engine panel strakes and trimming the diffuser’s outer fencing. All changes were run together during the second day of a January test at Phoenix.

“That basically adds up to about a 30% downforce reduction,” Dr. Eric Jacuzzi told NASCAR.com this past winter. “We’re now in a downforce level we haven’t been at since pre-2000s for sure — like mid ’90s.”

Unfortunately, while the stats say one thing, the eye test says the other.

So far, the results in the first three short tracks that ran the new package (Phoenix, Richmond and Martinsville) saw significant increases year-over-year in green flag passes for the lead and total green flag passes throughout the field at both Phoenix and Richmond.

Richmond Raceway’s 2023 Cup race (35 GFPL) set a new track record and saw an increase of +288.9% in green flag passes for the lead compared to the 2022 Richmond-1 event with nine green flag passes for the lead. 

Richmond (3,816 GFP) also set a new track record and saw an increase of +24.2% in total green flag passes compared to the 2022 Richond-1 event with 3,072 total green flag passes. 

Phoenix Raceway also saw increases of +7.7% year-over-year in green flag passes for the lead and +25.6% year-over-year in total green flag passes.

NASCAR could be banging the drum on those stats. Luckily, they’re not.

“Our short-track package, we’ve had some good races, but it’s probably not to the level that we as a sanctioning body and our fans have expected over time,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said Tuesday in an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

“So, our aero guys over here at the R&D Center, Dr. Eric Jacuzzi and his team, they’ve done some great work in the wind tunnel and they were in the wind tunnel again (Monday) just to make sure what they believe is going to be a really good package that we’re going to test at New Hampshire will lead us in a direction that will give us some really great short track racing.”

Phoenix saw 10 lead changes among 6 drivers with only 5 cautions for 35 laps. The cars were slipping and sliding a lot more around the Arizona oval. The only thing is, the only lead changes were really on pit sequences. Prior to Kevin Harvick passing Kyle Larson for the lead with 43 laps remaining that day, both Larson and William Byron had combined to lead 244 of the first 246 laps. The only time they didn’t lead was on the Stage 2 pit sequence when Larson pit on Lap 118. Ross Chastain stayed out and led Lap 119 before pitting. Keselowski did the same one lap later (Lap 120). Larson reinherited the lead on Lap 121 and would lead until his next pit stop on Lap 246.

At that point, Erik Jones stayed out to lead 14 laps before pitting. Larson took over the lead again on Lap 261 and was passed by Harvick on Lap 269. Only reason the lead changed hands two more times was for that caution with 11 to go for which Harvick took four tires and Larson won the race off pit road while taking two then Byron passing Larson for the win in the end. 

That’s it.

There were 14 lead changes in the spring race at Phoenix a year ago and just 11 in the championship race. There were 22 and 18 respectively the year prior. The 14 lead changes in the spring were the least amount since….2019. The 11 was even lower.

This time, we only got 10 lead changes.

Also last year, Bristol’s Fall race had the least amount of lead changes in well over a decade. Richmond had largely been a bust last year. They had 13 and 16 lead changes. That the worst since the 2019 package which was dubbed a mistake and changes were made.

Martinsville was also a dud this spring. 5 lead changes and the winner crossing the finish line 4.142-seconds ahead.

It was also terrible back in the spring of a year ago too. The 5 lead changes among 4 drivers that night were the same as we saw for 2019 too. The pair of 2019 races (3 lead changes each) and last spring (5) were the worst there since 1997. There were 18 and 15 respectively just one year prior. Last Fall we saw just 6 cautions and 8 lead changes.

There were only 4 cautions for 36 laps in April last year. That was at night and 100 laps shorter than the return trip last October. While the Fall race was a day race, it was still a cloudy day with temperatures in the upper 50’s. That’s not going to make the track slippery.

13 combined lead changes occurred a year ago. Last spring’s dud was for a number of factors including tires, the conditions of being a night race and the package.

Under the lights, it was far too cold for the tires to wear. As a result, the lack of rubber in the track made this one that you couldn’t pass. Then, factor in the shifting due to this racing package and the cars that would even start to get wide, could downshift to straighten in out and power up off the corners.

It was impossible to pass. Does this new package help? It didn’t. There were just 5 cautions for 50 laps this stime around.

However, I often wonder how much it truly will anyways. I mean Martinsville is Martinsville. It’s not like you can make a second lane for passing. The low lane is the low lane and anything above it just won’t work. The track was designed this way and you can’t magically change it no matter what package you run.

Even if the tires fall off more, you can always downshift in the corners in this Next Gen and upshift to get power off. While stats show an improved show in Phoenix, the eye test doesn’t really say it was vastly better. Richmond was better for sure, but that’s a place where tire wear is already a key factor and you can pass with multiple lanes there. Martinsville is well, Martinsville.

That’s why I’m curious on how much NASCAR can learn in Loudon to apply to other places. Martinsville is a tough one to get right whereas Phoenix is one you have to get back in the window.

When these are the final two races of the season, you can’t have them remain snooze fests. NASCAR is trying to do the right thing and constantly tweaking to make it right. You can’t ignore that fact and have to give credit where credit is due to the brass for making a solid effort.