"Save us from ourselves" - Dale Earnhardt's former crew chief on the NASCAR Next Gen car's parity

Dale Earnhardt's former crew chief Larry McReynolds recently shared his opinions on NASCAR's Next Gen cars which were introduced in the 2022 season.

Larry Mac took over as Dale Earnhardt's crew chief in 1997 after serving as a crew chief for Ernie Irvan. Although the duo could not clinch a single victory in the first season, McReynolds and Earnhardt secured a top-ten finish in the standings.

The pair's biggest moment came in 1998 when Dale Earnhardt clinched what was his biggest victory — the 1998 Daytona 500. Larry Mac ended his career shortly after, announcing his retirement at the end of the 2000 season.

McReynolds, in a recent episode of Kenny Wallace's podcast The Kenny Conversation (h/t TheSportsRush), emphasized the significant role of team owners in shaping the NASCAR landscape. He said:

"The owners tow NASCAR. If you’re gonna put us through the workload and the cost of completely building a brand new car, obsoleting everything they had, save us from ourselves. Don’t let us tinker."

Despite the changes, McReynolds acknowledged that teams still have a substantial toolbox for adjustments. He stated:

"We still got a big toolbox to work with," he said. There’s adjustments of plenty on this car, maybe not as big as the toolbox was on the old car."

Introduced in the Cup Series in 2022, closing the performance gap between the drivers was a central objective of the Next Gen car in NASCAR. With 19 different drivers winning a race in the Cup Series in the 2022 season and 15 in 2023, it is safe to conclude that the car has indeed brought the field closer.

With rule changes and the introduction of the new car, mid-sized teams found themselves in a more favorable position. The dominance of larger teams with deeper pockets diminished, and the best drivers no longer held significant advantages.

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Penalties weren't as frequent in Dale Earnhardt's era in comparison to the modern era of NASCAR

Penalties have been an escalating trend in recent years in NASCAR. The 2023 season alone saw Hendrick Motorsports being slapped with a massive 100-point penalty. The four crew chiefs of the team were also fined $100,000 each, along with a four-race suspension.

The infamous Pocono incident from last year, which saw Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch being removed from their top positions to hand Chase Elliott the victory, also comes to mind.

This is a stark contrast to the days of Dale Earnhardt when such penalties were not frequent. Highlighting this trend, Larry Mac humorously remarked, via the aforementioned source:

"Thank the good lord I’m a broadcaster, not a crew chief; I’d be eaten out of a trash can. I’d probably never be at the racetrack, I’d be suspended and indefinitely forever."