INSIGHT: Kurt Busch concussion puts NASCAR Next Gen crashes front and center

While there’s no denying Kurt Busch has had a series of hard hits this season, his fellow NASCAR Cup Series drivers are questioning the role of the car as Busch continues to be sidelined with concussion-like symptoms.

“We have all the data on it [and] he’s taken a lot of hits over 25gs,” Busch’s team co-owner, Denny Hamlin, said. “The body can only take [so] much. We had pause with this car and our bodies not matching the data that [NASCAR’s] showing us for a while, but I don’t think they really have any answers for us right now, and we don't have any more questions other than we know what it feels like when it gets hit.”

Busch will miss his third straight race this weekend. A crash on his qualifying lap at Pocono Raceway where his No. 45 Toyota spun around and backed into the wall has yet to see Busch cleared by doctors. Ty Gibbs remains his substitute driver.

The good news is that Busch is staying active on social media, sharing about his recovery. Last weekend, Busch was in the team shop following the activities from Indianapolis. Earlier this week, he posted about being at the Charlotte FC soccer game to integrate himself into a loud environment.

In the meantime, the safety aspect of the Next Gen car remains a topic of conversation. NASCAR officials gather data from each wreck through “black boxes,” which are crash data recorders, and there are also cameras focused solely on the driver to show what they experience in an incident. NASCAR officials have also been working with drivers on mouthguard accelerometers to register an impact on a driver.

A number of drivers have noted that the impacts this year are noticeably different. Former Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick was particularly pointed with his comments at Indianapolis. Never one to mince words, Harvick questioned the sanctioning body’s safety priority with Next Gen versus the competition on the racetrack.

Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

“I think when you look at the things that happened with the accidents, I think these are the exact concerns that the drivers had from the very first day we saw the car,” said Harvick. “There hasn’t been a lot of progression other than we changed some of the rear clip stuff; we changed some of the impact stuff. But these cars don’t crash like the other cars crash. They’re violent impacts, and they feel a lot different than what the crash data g-load is. It goes straight through the driver’s body."

Harvick continued by saying of NASCAR, “I saw a list of stuff from them, and it’s not the top thing on the priority. It's always about competition. And I know that they won’t tell you that but the concerns that the drivers have just hasn’t seemed to resonate into a really, really quick response in trying to make that better.”

Harvick stressed that no one but the drivers understands the extent of how bad the hits are. He said there have been times when there was a full extension on the HANS device after a driver rear-ended another car on a restart.

“And it takes you a second to really figure out that your hood’s not caved in and the ductwork is still in it and things that have happened,” Harvick said. “I don’t think anybody really understands, except for the drivers that have crashed into something, the violence that comes in the car.”

Harvick believes NASCAR has been more reactive than proactive.

“There’s not an easy fix, but it needs to be a much higher priority than what it is right now,” he said. “I know that safety is always a priority, and we’ve done a good job at that, but from the get-go, everybody could see this car was way too stiff. When I crashed it at Fontana, I thought the car was destroyed, and it barely backed the bumper off, and it just felt like somebody hit you with a hammer.”

Chase Briscoe doesn’t know if he wants to know the data and all the information from Busch’s accident. While Briscoe does think about what’s going on, he knows NASCAR officials aren’t going to put a worse car on the racetrack, and he understands it’ll take time to understand it better when it’s put in certain situations.

“We’ve changed quite a bit on this car already, and as we get more data points, we can take away from those and hopefully make it better every time,” said Briscoe. “But, truthfully, until we crash it hard a couple of times, it’s going take a set of data points to find out what we need to do different.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to do that, but that’s the truth of it. I don’t really care to see (the numbers). If I crash big, OK, yeah, I’d like to know how many g-forces it was or whatever. But to be honest with you, the numbers, I don’t really know what I’m looking at anyway, so it’s not like it’s going make a huge difference for me.”

Ross Chastain said NASCAR drivers are professional race car wreckers, but the good news is that as the sport evolves, so does the car. Chastain said the industry knows aspects of the car could be better, but he still called it a safe car even through the growing pains.

“Safety will never stop and we’ll always keep evolving,” said Chastain. “This car will evolve.”

The stiffness of the car seems to be a sticking point for drivers. Austin Dillon said rear impacts are stiffer, and Next Gen's weird impacts are different from the old car. Dillon said there are ongoing talks between NASCAR officials and drivers about that.

Corey LaJoie had to "unring a bell" after his heavy hits at Charlotte. Rusty Jarrett / Motorsport Images

Corey LaJoie took big hits in May, including two on the same weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. LaJoie said his wrecks, due to flat tires, were close to 30gs and before the next race at World Wide Technology Raceway, he went through a lot of treatment to “unring a bell.” LaJoie also spoke to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has experience with concussions.

LaJoie, at the time, said everyone was pulling the rope in the same direction to find solutions to help drivers. He explained many variables go into what is "a hard hit," but every crash is different in how a driver wrecks and their head position.

As far as the car goes, LaJoie said the center section of the Next Gen car weighs as much as the complete chassis of the previous car. The idea in going that direction was that teams wouldn’t have to swap out center sections for each routine hit.

“The only -- knock on wood -- way we kill somebody in these things now is if somebody comes through the window net or it gets upside, or somebody hits you in the door T-bone style at speed,” said LaJoie in June. “That’s the only way of an outlier crash that somebody will not walk out of a car. So NASCAR built the center section to take the outlier accidents, the 3 percent of hits. Probably even less than that. But with that, they made this car stiffer for the 97, 98 percent of the other crashes -- right front blown, back into the fence, any routine crash that we generally see, the car is considerably stiffer to take the outlier crash.”

But Justin Haley isn’t sure what can be done inside the car's cockpit. Haley admitted all of his hits this year have been big even if the data, as others have pointed out, isn’t saying the same thing. Haley said it’s a work in progress to get NASCAR officials to understand that.

Haley also mentioned that the impacts where the wall moves seem to be less of an issue. It’s the impact where the wall doesn’t move where problems arise. And, according to Haley, drivers have also raised the question about the shelf life of the SAFER barrier foam.

The extra protection offered by SAFER barriers is obvious, but can weather limit their useful life? Logan Whitton / Motorsport Images

“We brought up the question of, yeah, there’s SAFER barrier, but how often does the foam get changed?” said Haley. “Is there a point for climate change in different areas of the country? Because the foam that’s in Texas will age differently than the foam that’s in New Hampshire. So, we’re trying to dig deeper into that.

“Also, if we do hit big with foam, is there a process to change that foam? Because you hit foam, and it doesn’t go back to what it was. We’re trying to work through that and get answers.”

Busch’s crash at Pocono was not one of the worst seen from a data perspective. But as Ryan Blaney pointed out, many hits that once wouldn’t have been thought twice about are now leaving drivers feeling the after-effects.

“I’m sure they’re working on it,” Blaney said. “That’s NASCAR’s area to try to improve and the teams, all we can do is give them feedback and try to help that process along. I’m sure they’ve got a plan for the offseason, and I think all the drivers really want to help out with giving our feedback and just trying to make it better all-around.”

Chastain said drivers also talk amongst themselves and compare notes about what they’re feeling.

“We all feel like when we roll out on track that we have the safest car we can build,” said Chastain, “and if something happens to change that opinion, then we try to make it better.”