The Nascar Thread

Devildog said
XFinity still has the old car?

DaveXA said
Well, it's not the same. The Xfinity is more like the previous generation Cup cars. They drive much differently than Cup cars. That said, it's still pretty competitive and while it's clearly a step down from Cup in terms of talent, the races are still a lot of fun to watch, and often even more fun than Cup depending on the track.

Xfinity has the Xfinity car, but it's not really old. There have been steady and significant updates to it, including going to the carbon-fiber body in 2021, a year before the Next Gen Cup car. It's just a different car despite looking very similar.

Some elements of the current car are more like the Gen 6 Cup car (like 5 lugs on 15" wheels, the exhaust location, and the 4-speed H shift gearbox) but other elements of the car are more like the Next Gen car (carbon-fiber body, reduced chassis skew), and some elements like the carburetor are still on the Xfinity car but haven't been on the Cup since 2012. The X car also remains smaller (wheelbase) but can actually put out more horsepower.

It's best to see it just as a different car on its own developmental timeline and series objectives. Sometimes the X car serves as an experiment for a Cup development, but other times, the X car is best seen as a less advanced, smaller, lower-series car where Nascar doesn't want to price out smaller, X-only teams with expensive tech.