Last year would have been 1 week in the chassis shop, 2 days in heavy fab, 6 days on a body plate, 2 days in finish fab, 2 days in the body shop, a day in the scan room, 40 runs in the Hawkeye. In all honesty all of that part went really well. This would have required a backup car in the past as the chassis supports in the rear required cutting and welding for repair versus bolting on a new one with the redesigned car. Since the Next Car has modular chassis and body components, they were able to unbolt that rear bumper assembly and bolt a spare one and then reinstall the bodywork back over it. They were able to unbolt the deck lid and the composite rear bumper and quarter panels to find that the rear bumper assembly had taken most of the damage. The Stewart-Haas Racing crew examined the damage on the car and decided to repair it instead of going to a backup. 4 Ford of Kevin Harvick which ended up hitting the wall with its right corner. It was something we saw starting in the practice sessions with multiple cars spinning and some ending up in the wall. This is also often referred to as the car snapping loose. Lift-off oversteer is a condition where load transfer happens from the rear to the front tires of a car as the throttle is lifted, which causes the rear tires to lose traction and the tail of the car to snap around. Multiple cars spun from lift-off oversteer while cooling challenges started to show themselves for some teams in the early stages. We saw some of those challenges and how much harder this car is to drive in practice as well as the race. Sunday’s WISE Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway was an eventful race as drivers figured out the handling and cooling limits of the Next Gen car on the surface of the 2-mile oval. He will provide technical analysis for throughout the 2022 season. Editor’s note: Bozi Tatarevic is a professional racing mechanic and pit crew member.
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