Kyle Busch claims NASCAR "always could do more" regarding Next Gen car's safety

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch shared his views on Next Gen car safety issues and how NASCAR can handle them before the start of next season. His older brother Kurt Busch was sidelined this past season due to concussion-like symptoms from an accident at Pocono Raceway. He seems unlikely to return full-time in the Cup Series. Along with him, Alex Bowman, Kevin Harvick and a few other drivers also suffered big hits while driving the Next Gen car.

In a recent interview with NBC Sports, Busch was asked if he was satisfied going into next year as far as safety issues are concerned. The former Joe Gibbs Racing driver said he feels that NASCAR could do more about it. He also said that the governing body is too reactive.

Busch said:

“Yes. I feel like we always could do more. That’s sort of our push on NASCAR. We’re too reactive, and the reactive state of making changes is so slow. Like they have to go through a design process. They have to go through a crash-test process. They have to go through a build process. They have to have enough parts built to distribute to the teams to have enough cars to allow us to run it.”

He continued:

“They’ve created a disaster with this car and all the processes it takes — when they came down with the fact that you have to buy from single-source suppliers instead of teams being able to do the majority of work themselves and get everything caught up faster. It’s a process. It’s tough. It’s hard. I get it. I don’t think drivers are very patient people. We’re never going to be satisfied that everything happens fast enough.”

---

NASCAR to implement safety improvements to Next Gen car ahead of the 2023 season

Two months ago, NASCAR held a meeting with its drivers at Charlotte Motor Speedway to discuss efforts by the governing body to improve driver safety in light of Buch and Bowman’s concussion and other injuries in the Cup Series’ Next Gen car.

A key development that emerged from the meeting was the confirmation that the governing body will make changes to the Next Gen car in 2023, offering a new rear bumper structure and rear clip to address concerns that the car won’t crumple in a rear impact and transfer enough power to the driver.

Whether these changes promised by NASCAR will be implemented effectively and whether they will be enough to drastically reduce driver injuries is yet to be seen. Outspoken leaders in the sport, like Kyle Busch, will nevertheless have something to say about it during the 2023 season.