When NASCAR launched its Next Gen car back in 2021, wasn’t it supposed to be cheaper for the teams to run? Wasn’t that supposed to be part of the attraction?

The answer to both of those questions, of course, was a big fat ‘yes’, but the reality appears to be very different.

We got the full, eye-watering figures thanks to that high-profile court battle going on down in Charlotte, pitting Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin and co against the sport.

But we should not forget there are two teams attempting to take on the might of the France dynasty, it is not just 23XI Racing. And the evidence filed by Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins provided some shocking nuggets of information.

We now know that Jenkins has lost around $100million running a team, with $60million of that in the last 10 years. He loses $6.8million per year and has NEVER made a profit or even take a salary.

And if we dig further into the detail, we find some shocking revelations about the Next Gen car (the one most fans hate).

Next Gen car almost TREBLED costs

Jenkins’ evidence - per NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck - revealed that before the advent of the Next Gen car - which made its debut at the Daytona 500 in 2022, Front Row spent $1.8million annually on parts.

Shockingly, that number has almost trebled to a $4.7million annually with the Next Gen car.

Jenkins also revealed that it costs $30,000 to repair a non-wrecked car each week. The reason being the nose and tail still have to be sent back to the vendor and teams cannot repair it themselves.

NASCAR said it would be cheaper

Pretty grim stuff, NASCAR fans, and a far cry from what we were all promised when the talks about the Next Gen car first kicked off in 2019. This segment is taken directly from the official NASCAR website:

“The first talks about the Next Gen project begin in earnest at NASCAR’s Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina. The emphasis for the first discussions: a renewed relevance to each automaker’s production-car counterparts, budget-minded measures meant to attract new teams and manufacturers and also an improved racing product.”

The key words in that segment are ‘budget-minded’ - that suggests this would be a good thing financially for the teams. According to Jenkins’ evidence, that does not appear to be the case.

We would also note that the Next Gen car was supposed to 'attract new teams and manufacturers and an improved racing product'. As it stands there are no new manufacturers and most drivers (and most fans) appear to hate it. Great job.

So if fans hate it, and it does not save money, why exactly do we have the Next Gen car? We do not know the answer, do you?