NASCAR is investigating a spate of car fires that left one Cup Series title contender fuming after his ride erupted into an inferno during Sunday’s Southern 500, the first of 10 playoff races to determine the 2022 season’s overall champion.
Kevin Harvick lashed out at NASCAR and its Next Gen car after his inexplicably caught fire at Darlington Raceway. The Next Gen, which debuted this season, uses single-source parts and is intended to both level the playing field and cut costs for teams.
The Next Gen has achieved some of its goals, but it has also raised safety concerns involving the force of impact that drivers are experiencing in crashes. Kurt Busch, the 2004 Cup Series champion who drives for 23XI Racing, has been out since late July after sustaining a concussion during qualifying at Pocono Raceway, which ultimately led him to withdraw from the playoffs shortly before the regular-season finale.
Now the problem with car fires is at the forefront after Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing Ford burned on national television Sunday night. Although Alex Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet caught fire at Darlington in May, the fires have predominantly plagued Fords. Chris Buescher and Joey Logano both had car fires at Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course, while Chase Briscoe’s car caught on fire at Richmond Raceway. None are teammates with each other, but all three drive Fords.
“I’m sure it’s just crappy parts on the race car like we’ve seen so many times. They haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff. We just let it keep going and keep going,” said Harvick, who finished 33rd at Darlington because of the fire.
“The car started burning, and as it burned the flames started coming through the dash. I ran a couple laps, and then as the flame got bigger, it started burning stuff up. The fire was coming through the dash. What a disaster for no reason. We didn’t touch the wall. We didn’t touch a car, and here we are in the pits with a burned-up car and we can’t finish the race during the playoffs because of crappy-ass parts.”
Harvick said he stopped where he did on the track — bringing out a caution some have said took NASCAR too long to call — “because the flames were coming through the dash, and I couldn’t make myself sit in there and burn up.”
The fire dropped Harvick, the 2014 Cup Series champ and a winner of two races this season, to last in the 16-driver playoff field headed into Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. Four drivers will be eliminated from contention after the following weekend’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
NASCAR, which already has been looking into the rigidness of the Next Gen based on driver feedback, has acknowledged “it’s unacceptable for the cars to catch on fire,” and senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said series officials are investigating.
In the meantime, NASCAR ordered teams to replace a part of the polymer panel used in the passenger side door area with stainless steel. The design is intended to keep debris from the drivers. NASCAR is also permitting changes to the coating material used on the cars, and the sanctioning body also mandated a lateral seal across the engine panel.
Miller rebuked Harvick’s notion that NASCAR has not addressed Next Gen problems.
“To say that NASCAR doesn’t care is about as far from the truth as you could get. I think he actually does know we do care,” Miller said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“We’ve been working on different solutions for different things along the way that seem to maybe be the trigger. Obviously, we still have work to do,” Miller added.
Miller also said NASCAR is taking a close look at Ford’s exhaust clearances “because they seem to be having more trouble with this than the others.
“There’s a lot of work going on, a lot of collaboration within the industry to get to the bottom of it. We have to get to the bottom of it quick, obviously,” he said.
One theory is that rubber buildup on the track is getting trapped inside the cars and then igniting, which is why NASCAR has mandated the splitter seal to “reduce the migration of tire debris to the splitter area.”