NASCAR make Cup Series rule change after scary wrecks

NASCAR have announced a rule change to address a major ongoing concern in the Cup Series.

Drivers and their families have been open about their concerns over how relatively easy it is for the Next Gen car to catch the wind and get airbourne in a wreck, particularly at drafting tracks.

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The sport has now responded by mandating new A-post flaps to be featured on Cup Series cars at drafting tracks, explaining that the flaps – installed on the A-pillar (where the windshield meets the body), will self-deploy during sudden yaw or lift, and will be implemented from Daytona onward.

NASCAR’s vice president of vehicle performance innovation aero, Dr. Eric Jacuzzi, recently said of the idea: “It started out as a concept that wasn’t really viable, and then we had a couple brainstorms and sort of came up with this idea. It proved to be very, very effective.”

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Preece wreck sparks NASCAR change

Ryan Preece has been involved in two terrifying flips at Daytona in the last couple of years, and it's the second of those in this spring's Daytona 500 that appears to have prompted this change.

Preece was tagged after Christopher Bell wrecked, with his car catching some air under the front bumper and speeding down the back stretch as if being lifted at the front by an invisible string.

Speaking after the wreck, the No. 60 driver said: "I don’t know if it’s the diffuser or what that makes these cars like a sheet of plywood when you walk out on a windy day. When the car took off like that, all I thought about was my daughter. I’m lucky I got to walk away, but we’re getting closer and closer to someone not being able to."

He continued: I don’t know what the right thing to say right now is, but the thing I want to say right now as a father and as a racer is we keep beating on a door hoping for a different result. We know where there’s a problem at superspeedways; I don’t want to be the example.

"When it finally does get someone, I don’t want it to be me. I’ve got a two-year-old daughter; just like a lot of us. We have families. Something needs to be done cause cars lifting off the ground like that felt honestly worse than Daytona in ’23."

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