NASCAR and its stakeholders know there is a chance the sport will have to look different in the future if new manufacturers are going to join the fold.
The change will come from one of racing’s biggest variables – under the hood.
Tyler Gibbs, the president of Toyota Racing Development, explained as much during Race Industry Week. Gibbs acknowledged that the short answer is yes: the current manufacturers would be open to switching to something new because there is an understanding of relevance in the engine space. In fact, it’s an area that a manufacturer who is only rumored to potentially one day field an entry is already focused on.
“I think NASCAR and the existing OEMs in NASCAR all understand that in order for new OEMs to come in, no one is going to make a pushrod cast iron V8 block,” Gibbs said. “It’s just not something they are going to do. It doesn’t fit into their line-up; it doesn’t fit into their relevancy formula. So, it’s unlikely that’s going to be something that new OEMs would do. So, if we want new OEMs in the sport, we probably have to have some mechanism that allows for that to happen.”
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“We have great partners in Chevy and Ford and Toyota, and they’ve been with us forever,” [NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton] Sawyer said. “But we need a platform that will invite some new OEMs to come and participate. They love the Next Gen car. The one thing they’re not going to do is they are not going to build a V8 pushrod engine. So, we have to continue to develop and look at different platforms and options that will be inviting to those OEMs.”
— Racer —