NASCAR, in an effort to find a fix for the short track package for the Next Gen car, proposed a ‘Run What Ya Brung’ format for the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where teams would have a lot more freedom to tinker with their cars.
It would allow teams to think more outside of the box, and it would allow NASCAR to gain notes about what may improve the short track package going forward. However, the teams vetoed the proposal.
This week, Denny Hamlin explained on his Actions Detrimental Podcast that the decision to decline the ‘Run What Ya Brung’ format for the All-Star Race was a cost-based decision for the team owners. Hamlin estimated that the All-Star Race would cost teams roughly $2 million due to research and development for a race that paid $1 million to the race winner.
However, on the latest Hauler Talk Podcast, an official NASCAR Podcast, which breaks down the behind-the-scenes rules and items within the sport, NASCAR’s Mike Forde refuted Hamlin’s claims and said that the format would have cost teams nothing.
“Denny talked about how this would cost potentially $2 million if we went ahead and did this. I think his math was off by about $2 million,” Forde joked. “But what actually it could cost is $0 or potentially save teams money, believe it or not. And I’m sorry, Denny, but I did text with Denny. I told him, ‘You can listen to NASCAR’s hottest new podcast on Wednesday for all of the goods.'”
While Hamlin suggested that teams would have to essentially write off an entire chassis due to modifications made for the All-Star Race, as well as spend money creating and modifying new parts for the race, Forde says that is simply not true.
“What we presented to the teams is that you cannot modify any parts, you cannot build any new parts, you can’t create any new parts, everything still had to be single-sourced,” Forde explained. “But there was a list of things we were going to allow teams to do.”
According to Forde, here was the list that NASCAR was going to allow teams to do:
- Full control over ride heights; damper lengths would not be enforced
- Nose weight would be fully customizable (weight requirements for full car and right side would still apply)
- Choice of running either diffuser (short track/road course or intermediate/superspeedway)
- Optional underbody strakes
- Ability to mix/match spoilers and spoiler bases (any spoiler in inventory could be used)
Forde contends with everything being a current single-source supplied part, that running the All-Star Race under the ‘Run What Ya Brung’ format wouldn’t have cost teams anything to run. But he did also outline a path where he felt teams could have actually saved money under the format.
“And part two about this, and why I say teams actually probably could have saved money on this idea is if you didn’t want to do anything, if you wanted to not come up with any idea, you can just build your cars, what you could have done is used body panels that probably aren’t race-ready for a Talladega or a Coke 600, but probably too good for a show car, and use it for the All-Star Race,” Forde said. “So, you could have used sort of like hand-me-downs, which they do now, but if it’s hand-me-downs that are not up-to-snuff for a points race, you could have used it there, and actually saved some money.”
If this is indeed the case, it begs the question: why did the teams ultimately veto the proposal? According to Forde, he feels it had more to do with the unique format causing distractions within the shops of the teams rather than the cost implications of the format.
