NASCAR Refutes Claim That ‘Run What Ya Brung’ Would Have Cost Teams

By now, you’ve likely heard that NASCAR had floated the idea of running a ‘Run What Ya Brung’ style event for the upcoming NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where teams would have been required to do a safety inspection with their race cars, but would have been basically allowed to have autonomy over whatever else they’d like to do with their cars for the event.

For NASCAR, it would have been a chance to pick up some ideas on how to fix the short track package, which has put on subpar shows since the car was implemented in 2022.

Ultimately, teams declined the option. On this week’s Actions Detrimental Podcast, Denny Hamlin explained that the decision for teams to not participate in a ‘Run What Ya Brung’ All-Star Race boiled down to costs. Hamlin estimated that it would cost teams roughly $2 million in research and development in order to battle for a $1 million prize in the All-Star Race.

Hamlin also said that it shouldn’t be on the teams to spend money to help NASCAR R&D the Next Gen car.

In the latest episode of NASCAR’s Hauler Talk Podcast, Mike Forde of NASCAR disputes Hamlin’s math. Forde even claimed that the ‘Run What Ya Brung’ All-Star format could have saved teams money instead.

“Denny talked about how this would cost potentially $2 million if we went ahead and did this. I think his math was off by about $2 million,” Forde said. “But what actually it could cost is $0 or potentially save teams money, believe it or not. And I’m sorry, Denny, but I did text with Denny. I told him, ‘You can listen to NASCAR’s hottest new podcast on Wednesday for all of the goods.'”

Forde then launched into why he feels Hamlin’s math is misguided.

On his show, Hamlin explained that a team like his 23XI Racing organization, which fields three cars, would essentially be rendering three of its chassis to be unusable for any future races due to tricking them up for the All-Star Race. At $300,000 per car, roughly, that would be a $900,000 price tag.

Hamlin then claimed that his team would spend roughly $1 million with its partner Joe Gibbs Racing working on making new parts and pieces for the event. According to Forde, that is false. Forde says that NASCAR was not going to allow teams to modify single-source supplied parts or build new parts to use in place of the single-source parts.

“What we presented to the teams is that you cannot modify any parts, you cannot build any new parts, you can’t create any new parts, everything still had to be single-sourced,” Forde explained. “But there was a list of things we were going to allow teams to do.”

So, what was NASCAR going to let teams do under the proposed ‘Run What Ya Brung’ rules for the NASCAR All-Star Race?

According to Forde, the teams were going to be permitted to have full control of their ride heights, as damper lengths would not be enforced. While total weight, and right side weight would be enforced, teams would be allowed to do whatever they wanted for nose weight. Teams would also be able to select which diffuser they wanted to run for the race, currently, the sanctioning body has two different diffusers for the Next Gen car, one designed for short tracks and road courses, and the other for intermediates and superspeedways.

Teams would also be allowed to use or not use underbody strakes, and they would be permitted to mix and match spoiler bases with whatever spoiler package they’d like to run. However, the spoilers would have to come from those already in the team’s inventory.

Forde claims since all of these items would be coming from the team’s existing single-source supplied parts inventory, that there would be no additional cost for the proposed All-Star Race format. However, Forde also feels there is a path that teams could have gone, had they been so inclined, that would have actually led to savings by running the All-Star Race in a ‘Run What Ya Brung’ style format.

“And part two about this, and why I say teams actually probably could have saved money on this idea is if you didn’t want to do anything, if you wanted to not come up with any idea, you can just build your cars, what you could have done is used body panels that probably aren’t race-ready for a Talladega or a Coke 600, but probably too good for a show car, and use it for the All-Star Race,” Forde said. “So, you could have used sort of like hand-me-downs, which they do now, but if it’s hand-me-downs that are not up-to-snuff for a points race, you could have used it there, and actually saved some money.”

Now, Forde admitted that any team that had intentions of winning the All-Star Race likely wouldn’t go with this plan, but said, “…maybe a smaller team would.”

At the end of the day, Forde says there was a lot of thought put into the ‘Run What Ya Brung’ idea, which was posed as a chance for NASCAR to attempt to solve the ailing short track package for the Next Gen car, and that NASCAR, under the leadership of President Steve O’Donnell is not on a mission to cost the teams more money.

“Why I am mentioning Denny so much here is this is the second week in a row, and I would say this to his face, where he claimed that there wasn’t that much thought put into this. Which I can tell you is absolutely not true,” Forde stated. “There was a working group working on these ideas for months, so, there was a lot of thought put into this. As you listened to the first episode of Hauler Talk, Steve O’Donnell, who is now the President is very conscious of costing teams more money. And that thought trickles down throughout the organization. So, we’re not going to make rules that will cost the teams a ton of money, that’s just not what we do.”

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