In the third season for the seventh generation of NASCAR race car, fans were treated to simultaneously some of the best and worst racing we’ve seen with the so-called “Gen 7” yet.
The season started in Daytona, with a rain-postponed and deflating finish to the Great American race where William Byron won his first prestigious Harley J. Earl trophy after a, to say the least, ambiguous call by NASCAR race control, where they threw the caution flag mere milliseconds after Byron crossed the line to start the final lap of the race, ending it prematurely.
In the closing laps of the Las Vegas race two weeks later, Tyler Reddick, who clearly had the faster car, could not make it past eventual winner Kyle Larson. Aerodynamics play a key role in NASCAR racing (as bulky as the cars may seem), and the aero weaknesses of the Gen 7 were put on pure display as Reddick was stuck in the wake of Larson and was denied the overtake.
Fans, as usual, were highly disappointed by the lackluster finish, but more so by the persisting aerodynamic woes that have plagued the sport for nearly two decades now. The entire point of this seventh generation car was to eliminate the detriment of so-called “dirty air” (turbulent air behind the leading car), and even though the Gen 7 started development as early as 2019, it still struggles as much if not more than the previous generation of race cars.
Fans were treated to some amazing racing too, however. In Atlanta, the second race of the season, Daniel Suarez, Kyle Busch, and defending series champion Ryan Blaney comprised one of the most exhilarating finishes of the 2020’s, where Suarez, in a three-wide photo finish resembling something out of Pixar’s Cars, won by a mere 0.003 seconds: the fourth closest finish in NASCAR history.
The topsy-turvy season continued in Kansas in May, which saw the closest finish of all time in the premier series: a mere 0.001 seconds, nearly indiscernible to the eye even when slowed down, between winner Kyle Larson and runner-up Chris Buescher. Looking back, it is almost inconceivable that 2024 saw two of the closest finishes in NASCAR’s 76 year history, including *the* closest finish, but also contained some of the most deflating moments.
NASCAR returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 30th running of the Brickyard 400 in July, and fans were, expectedly, disappointed again by the Gen 7’s aerodynamic issues. However, they fell into another, even worse pit of despair as NASCAR race control made another one of its innumerable blunders of the 2024 season. Brad Keselowski was leading late in the race on a rapidly depleting tank of gas, and Ryan Blaney, with enough fuel to make it to the end, was in hot pursuit. Behind Blaney was Kyle Larson mounting an incredible late pursuit for the checkered flag. Was Brad going to make it? And if Blaney passed him, was he fast enough to hold off Larson? The story was writing itself, but there came 6th place Kyle Busch to spin himself out with less than 10 laps to go, bringing out the caution flag. After a few laps under caution and coming around the final turn to take the green flag, Keselowski ran out of gas. Larson, who lined up in the third spot, moved up an entire row instead of into the second place position, which is where Blaney was. Blaney rightfully claimed he was the leader, and that Larson should have to line up on the outside lane in the second position instead of first, but NASCAR race control let the ruling stand, and Blaney restarted second instead of first. A huge pileup followed in Turn 1, bringing out the caution again. On the second overtime restart, Larson kept the lead, and another wreck ensued coming out of Turn 2. However, NASCAR did not throw the caution flag until after Larson had taken the white flag, ending another major race prematurely. Procedure states that if a caution comes out before the white flag, there must be another overtime restart. In the immediate controversy, fans accused NASCAR of bias towards Larson, stating that they wanted him to win, and ensured it by waiting until the final lap to throw the caution flag and end the race a lap early.
And finally, if the 2024 season had not been controversial enough, the 12th-best driver ended up winning the championship. NASCAR does not use a season-long points tally to determine the champion, but a convoluted “Playoff” format. Perhaps the most infuriating part is that in NASCAR, the athletes race on a track instead of play on a field, which just invalidates the “Playoff” title. Regardless, a driver qualifies for the Playoffs by winning a race in the 26 event-long regular season, or placing high enough in the points standings. 16 drivers are entered into the playoffs, and if a driver lower than 16th in regular season standings wins a race, they are put into the playoffs ahead of the 16th place driver (if they have not won), and the cutoff is at the the 15th slot. Joey Logano, eventual champion, was guaranteed a place in the playoffs with his win at the Nashville Superspeedway, and seeded in 9th to start the playoffs. In regular-season points, he was 15th after 26 races, but made the playoffs ahead of 11th place Chris Buescher, who did not win a regular-season race (by 0.001 seconds at Kansas Speedway). Logano won the Playoff opener at Atlanta, and again at Las Vegas, which secured him a spot in the “Championship 4.” In the Playoffs, 4 drivers are eliminated every three races for a total of 9 races, creating 3 “rounds” to the Playoffs, leaving 4 drivers to compete for a championship in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway. Logano, who, even with two more wins to his name, would’ve been 12th in a season long format entering the race at Phoenix, got to compete for a championship while drivers like Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Denny Hamlin, who compiled as many or more wins, and overall had better seasons, got eliminated from championship contention at the end of the penultimate race in Martinsville, Virginia, due to the top-4 cutoff. The other three contenders for the championship were Ryan Blaney, 2023 series champion, William Byron, 2023 runner-up and 2024 Daytona 500 winner, and Tyler Reddick, the regular-season champion. Logano, in every statistic except for race wins, had an inferior season to his three competitors, but scored a walkoff win in the 312 lap race at Phoenix, and with it, the 2024 NASCAR Championship and the decreasingly prestigious Bill France Cup.
A season that started with controversy and carried through with controversy ended, fittingly, with controversy, as it would have been Kyle Larson walking away with the 2024 championship in a season-long points format. Larson’s season consisted of 6 race wins, 15 top-5 finishes, and 1,700 laps led, while Logano’s consisted of 4 race wins, 7 top-5 finishes, and only 414 laps led. NASCAR, which has a lot to be optimistic about heading into 2025, also has some serious problems to address: the cars are too aerodynamically sensitive, race-control acts like it’s barely capable of officiating a race at the local go-kart track, and the “champion,” in all metrics, was far from the actual best driver of 2024.
