NASCAR needs to address drivers’ safety concerns. Now.
-
Marty Smith
-
Ryan McGee
Close
ESPN Senior Writer- Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
- 2-time Sports Emmy winner
- 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year
With the playoffs firmly underway, it’s the business end of the NASCAR season, bringing plenty of tension to the sport’s protagonists. But this past weekend, as Chase Elliott won at Talladega Superspeedway, drivers’ disquiet that has bubbled beneath the surface for most of the season came to a head: questioning the safety of the Next Gen car.
Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman are missing from the grid with concussions suffered in the Next Gen car, Cody Ware confirmed Tuesday that he’ll skip the Charlotte Roval because of the broken foot he endured in the Next Gen. Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick have been vocal in their criticisms of NASCAR’s approach to safety this season. On Saturday, Elliott said he felt safety in the series was going “backward.”
With so many opinions being exchanged on what is the biggest topic in any motorsport, ESPN turned to Ryan McGee and Marty Smith for their takes on driver safety in NASCAR.
– Watch Formula One all season long on ESPN
– Don’t have ESPN? Get instant access
Smith: It’s really obvious when you hear champion-level, first-ballot Hall of Fame-level drivers voicing the concern that they are. Hamlin was extremely vocal at Talladega that the racecar is not as safe as it should be, and that drivers have told that to NASCAR time and again. According to Hamlin, NASCAR wanted the Next Gen car on the racetrack at all costs, and then he repeated himself: at all costs. I’ve had conversations with drivers, this is something that they are very concerned about, and they are calling for change. I would expect NASCAR will listen to them, and they better listen to them.
McGee: And I think that’s the difference now versus not that long ago, and certainly not when you and I first started covering the sport, is that they’re going to listen. You and I have lived through multiple generations of racecars now, and there have been complaints before, and a lot of times the response was, “Well, this is what you got. Put your people to work.” I really think now the difference is that NASCAR President Steve Phelps talks with drivers all the time. It had to get to an unfortunate position with multiple drivers, but it sounds like they’re in the process of trying to make changes as immediately as they possibly can. Is that your take?
Smith: They need to, and I do think they’re going to make changes. These cars are very rigid. There’s not a lot of give when you crash, and they don’t crush the way that the previous racecar did. And so the previous racecar, because there was more crush in it, there was more give in it. It wasn’t as rigid. That energy was dissipated away from the driver in a different way than it is now. More energy is making its way to the driver now because the car is so much stiffer.
McGee: I go back to when I covered the Indy Racing League back in the late ’90s, and that was like this: This was a spec car, there wasn’t a whole lot of creative engineering going on the race shop; it was, “This is the car you have.” They were breaking guys’ backs because everything had been focused on forward impacts. They weren’t thinking clearly about cars backing into walls. Everybody was fine if they crashed straight ahead or even if they crashed side to side, but as soon as they backed in even a tiny little impact, they were cracking vertebra. That’s what this feels like. There was so much focus in one direction that maybe there wasn’t enough in the other direction.
Smith: The drivers will tell you, they implored NASCAR: “We need to change this.” And according to those drivers, NASCAR was hell bent to get this thing to the race track, and they did that, and it came with great fanfare. You and me have been very, very complimentary of the racing and the show, but when the show ends up with guys that maybe did not come out of accidents the way they would’ve in a past racecar, then it’s time for change. Period.
McGee: Everybody I’ve talked to is working really hard on this now. It’s just a matter of getting it out on a race track on a Sunday.
Smith: When you have a guy like Hamlin who says out loud, “It needs a complete redesign,” I don’t think that he says that flippantly. I think that he means what he’s saying, that the frustration and the concern has gotten to a place where NASCAR needs to listen to these engineers on these race teams, and I think we’re at that point. When the drivers start to get really vocal and “Good Morning America” is doing stories on NASCAR safety, I think that the sanctioning body will listen.
McGee: And I think they are listening. It’s just a matter of how quickly they can get it turned around. If they could take that car with the racing that we’ve seen this season and eliminate these issues, then it’s a home run.
Smith: Home run. The competition this year has been thrilling. We’ve had record numbers of winners and it’s just been a season full of new energy and it’s been awesome to see. But this is something that’s very concerning to the competitors, and so I think NASCAR is understanding that it’s time to make some alterations.
McGee: The only thing that could possibly take away from what we both agree is one of the greatest, most competitive seasons in the history of the sport is this story right here. And so you have to fix it. You have to.
-
Adam Rittenberg
While Dabo Swinney isn’t inflating LSU‘s grade for beating his team in Saturday’s season opener, Brian Kelly is ready to give the Clemson coach an incomplete for his evaluation.
Both coaches weighed in Tuesday on how LSU’s 17-10 win at Clemson should be viewed. After trailing 10-3 at halftime, LSU outscored Clemson 14-0 in the second half and finished with significant edges in both total yards (354-261) and first downs (25-13).
LSU rose six spots to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll Tuesday, while Clemson dropped four spots to No. 8.
“It was a helluva game, down to the last play,” Swinney said in his weekly news conference. “Right out of the gate. It’s like getting the final exam [on] Day 1 of class. They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.”
Kelly had not won a season opener at LSU before Saturday, and the victory was his first with the Tigers against an AP top-5 opponent.
“I thought we dominated them in the second half, so he’s really a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he’s a really hard grader on us,” Kelly said in his news conference when told about Swinney’s comment.
“Or he didn’t see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.”
Kelly added that LSU is moving on to this week’s game against Louisiana Tech.
“Clemson is a darn good football team,” Kelly said. “That’s a top-notch team, and they’re going to be a team in the hunt for [the] playoff picture. We hope we are, too. But it was only one game. So I don’t know if he’s a hard grader or an easy grader, but I like the way that we played in the second half.”
Clemson visits LSU to open the 2026 season.
-
Eli Lederman
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Bryce Underwood “looks to be wise beyond his years” and compared Michigan‘s freshman quarterback to former Clemson national championship QB Trevor Lawrence on Tuesday ahead of the No. 18 Sooners’ Week 2 visit from the No. 15 Wolverines.
Underwood, ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in the 2025 class, will make his second career start at Oklahoma on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
The coveted freshman earned Michigan’s starting job at the end of fall camp, beating out a collection of experienced passers on the depth chart including offseason portal additions Mikey Keene (Fresno State) and Jake Garcia (East Carolina). Underwood delivered a smooth college debut against New Mexico in Week 1, completing 21 of 31 passes for 251 yards and a touchdown in Michigan’s 34-17 win.
At Oklahoma, Underwood is set to face a much stiffer challenge against Venables, who resumed control of the Sooners’ defensive playcalling ahead of the 2024 season, and an experienced defense that held Illinois State to 151 yards of total offense in Week 1.
The former Clemson defensive coordinator compared Underwood to Lawrence, the five-star quarterback prospect who started as a freshman in 2018 and led the Tigers to a national championship win over Alabama.
“He’s a little different,” Venables said of Underwood. “It reminds me a lot of a Trevor Lawrence. Quick. Decisive. Accurate. Poised. Tough. Consistent. There’s a reason he was the No. 1 player in America. And he’s got a maturity and a work ethic and leadership agility to go along with that.”
As Oklahoma seeks to rebound from a 6-7 finish last fall, a new-look Sooners offense will get a test of its own Saturday.
Behind transfer QB John Mateer and first-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, Oklahoma gained 495 yards of offense in its 35-3, season-opening win over Illinois State. Mateer, who arrived in the offseason from Washington State alongside Arbuckle, passed Baker Mayfield for the most passing yards by an Oklahoma QB in a debut with 392 yards.
On Tuesday, Venables highlighted the Wolverines’ experience on defense, particularly in the front seven, as a defining challenge for the Sooners in an intriguing Week 2 matchup between two of college football’s most storied brands.
“[It’s] a defense that for the last several years has been one of the gold standards of college football when it comes to playing good defense,” Venables said. “It’s going to be a great physical matchup, and for us, a great litmus test to where we’re at.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024