Denny Hamlin predicts changes to Next Gen cars after Ryan Preece’s Daytona wreck

Denny Hamlin believes changes are coming to NASCAR’s Next Gen cars following Ryan Preece’s Daytona wreck.

In what ended up being a terrifying wreck, Preece tumbled over almost a dozen times as he went through the grass, airborne, and then tumbled to a stop. During the latest edition of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin made the bold prediction that changes are coming, as he explained how the incident came to fruition.

“That’s what happened I think to his roof hatch. The top of the car hit the ground, compressed it, boom, popped out the roof hatch,” explained Hamlin. “If you saw the roof hatch and how it’s secured, it’s – I mean we’re going to add another 100 pounds to this car, this thing is going to weigh 4000 pounds before you know it with all these bars and sh** we’re going to add. I’m going to guarantee you the roof hatch is going to be all metal now instead of aluminum like this things going to weigh so much it’s ridiculous.

“We’ve gotta have our Next Gen 2.0 soon. It’s very flimsy, it’s flimsy. I mean we always check before I go out to make sure this aluminum hatch device is secured. So, I think that the Tupperware top, popped off his roof hatch, is my opinion.”

That makes a ton of sense from Hamlin. The biggest safety innovations come from the nastiest wrecks, so the 23XI Racing team owner likely isn’t far off in saying there are more changes coming following Preece’s moment at Daytona.

Moreover, Hamlin also called Preece’s wreck the “most violent barrel roll” he’s ever seen, which is a greta way of putting it.

“So they start to play it and so I’m driving, I’m looking through the window net and I’m looking and seeing him turn and start to flip and I’m like ‘Oh wow he got some good air. Oh no!’ I mean as soon as his car hit the grass, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one have that many rotations in the air,” Hamlin explained. “I mean, not since a U.S. gymnast have I seen that many barrel rolls before making contact. Holy cow.

“I mean, we got news that Ryan’s out of the hospital on his way to Charlotte now so seems like he’s fine. Got a tweet from him last night, so I think he’s going to be okay so we can comment on it. But holy sh**. That thing was violent. That was the most violent barrel roll I’ve ever seen. Usually, you’ve seen in the old days when the cars would barrel roll, it’d be a little bit slower, the car would dissipate more. His car really kind of stayed together, except for the roof hatch and the window net, yikes.”

Alas, time will tell what NASCAR decides to do to mitigate the risk of a similar wreck happening in the future, but it’s evident changes are coming to the Next Gen car regardless.

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