Dale Earnhardt Jr. commends NASCAR's work with Next Gen car amid Kyle Larson's scary Atlanta wreck

Following Kyle Larson's major hit at Atlanta last weekend, Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts on the Next Gen car. The current generation of the racecar in the Cup Series got off to a controversial start in 2022 when drivers suffered from and complained about its rigidity in certain wreck scenarios.

The situation got so severe at one point that Kurt Busch, who suffered a concussion injury in a wreck, was forced to retire from the sport.

However, NASCAR worked on the safety side of the Next Gen car and improved the energy distribution aspect in wreck scenarios. Because of this, Earnhardt Jr. recently commended them for improving the car after Larson's Atlanta wreck.

"I want to commend NASCAR, I want to commend anyone who had anything to do with the changes that they made with this car to allow it to destroy itself. I promise you, if Kyle Larson hit the wall with the Next Gen when it was weeks into it's original launch, that car wouldn't have folded up at all, and he would've taken all that energy and it would've been a severe, severe experience for him physically," he said. [20:50]

The NASCAR Hall of Famer further described that everyone inside the sport put in a lot of work over the last few years to get the car to where it is today. He also acknowledged the fine balance of driver safety and keeping the costs reasonable.

"I'd love to have racecars that got in the wall and didn't get damaged, as an owner I don't want to fix damage. But the drivers can't take all that energy and can't absorb those impacts and that's what will happen and had happened with the Next Gen in the past. It would not crunch. It would not absorb energy, the driver took it all," he said.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. highlights area for improvement for NASCAR in Next Gen car

Despite Dale Earnhardt Jr. commending NASCAR for their leaps in Next Gen safety, he singled out one area for improvement. He recalled the practice session at Fontana in 2022, when Ross Chastain oversteered in turns 3 & 4 and hit the wall.

Earnhardt Jr. likened that to the recent Larson incident as he said:

"I'm curious I guess if it's the steering rack. What is it that made Larson, I'm not saying I expected him to save that slide but why did the car take a right and hten it was like the controller battery died. I mean, the car just took a B LINE to the wall. What is that? Why?" [23:15]

Earnhardt Jr. revealed that NASCAR decided to go away from a traditional steering box to the current rack system which is quicker. But while it doesn't steer the tires faster, it is twitchier. He suggested a dialogue with the drivers regarding what they'd like to change about the Next Gen car so the wrecks such as Larson's aren't at as severe an angle as they were.