Phelps, O’Donnell Cover Variety of Topics in Annual State of the Sport Address – Motorsports Tribune

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ahead of the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, NASCAR president Steve Phelps and Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell took to the stage to for the annual State of the Sport address, which recapped the sport’s 74^th year of existence and looked ahead to the future.

First and foremost was the safety of the Next Gen car, which Phelps discussed was designed to be a stronger car to protect against the massive hits, like the ones sustained by Ryan Newman at Daytona and Joey Logano at Talladega, but in strengthening the car, the more mundane impacts wound up having a negative effect on the drivers, which the sanctioning body is now working to remedy.

“As with anything that is new, you’re going to learn, collect data, which we’ve done,” O’Donnell said. “Adjustments have been made to the rear clip that’s already gone out to the race teams for next year.

“I think that dialogue with the race teams, with the drivers, about how we continued to – what Steve talked about – protect from the catastrophic is the number one priority, then as you go, what are you learning about this new car.

“What we’re learning is those smaller hits, which we’ve never seen before in terms of a car that we’ve raced, are the ones we really need to concentrate on. That’s why you’re seeing the tweaks being made to the clip, for those smaller impacts, even a bump on a restart, those types of things.

“It’s not just the car. I think the dialogue we’ve had with the teams now involves how are you fitting in your seat, helmets, foam head surround. All those things are part of this dialogue, which is really, really good. We’re seeing some improvements on a daily basis as we look towards 2023.”

While the Next Gen car has had its problems safety-wise, the on-track product that the car has been able to deliver in producing a record-tying 19 different winners this season has been a major storyline in 2022.

“If you consider that before this year, the Next Gen car, you had to have a relationship with one of five race teams if you wanted to come into this sport. You had to,” Phelps explained.

“This car changed that. What does this car do? There was a relevance to this car for OE partners. The styling was fantastic of this car. Then the question would be, Well, what’s the raceability of the car? The raceability of the car was such that it resulted in 19 different…