NASCAR returned to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Tuesday for a one-day test of its Next Gen Race car on the CMS oval with Kurt Busch behind the wheel. Busch, along with Martin Truex Jr., tested the car at Charlotte in November on both the facility’s oval and Roval (oval and infield road-course hybrid).
“We’re circling around on a few suggestions I made from December,” Busch [@KurtBusch] tweeted. “Humbled by the opportunity to work on this development with @NASCAR.”
The Next Gen car is slated to make its competitive debut in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2022. The series was expected to go to the new car for the 2021 season, but a suspension of track time in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted NASCAR to push the new car’s debut to 2022. Testing of the car began late in 2019.
“[We] were able to validate some work we’ve done since our recent tests at Charlotte and Daytona,” NASCAR Senior Vice President of Racing Innovation John Probst said Tuesday, according to a tweet from FOX Sports writer Bob Pockrass [@BobPockrass]. “We’re happy with what we saw on the track today.”
Tuesday’s test at Charlotte was the first Next Gen test of 2021. The car was last on track in December 2020 at Daytona International Speedway with Chris Buescher behind the wheel.
