Mark Martin revisited NASCAR’s long-running technical debate around the Next Gen car during his appearance on the latest Dale Jr. Download. While promoting his new book Never Lift, the conversation shifted to how he would fix the racing produced by the Gen-7 car, and the Hall of Famer pointed to downforce and why he believes the sport took the wrong direction more than three decades ago.

The discussion comes at a time when NASCAR continues to face criticism over the Next Gen car’s racing on short tracks and road courses. While the car has improved safety and reduced costs through standardized components, many drivers and fans believe the current aerodynamic package makes passing too difficult, particularly when cars run close together.

Looking back at the evolution of Cup Series aerodynamics, Martin argued that NASCAR’s current problems can be traced to the early 1990s, when teams increasingly chased downforce to improve cornering speed. That was also when drivers first began talking about cars becoming ‘aero-tight,’ with disturbed airflow making it harder for a trailing car to stay close through the corners.

“In 1990, when we went to Atlanta to race your dad for the championship at the end of the year, we had three cars that we wind-tunneled,” Mark Martin said (1:16:48 onwards). “We had two that, in race trim, that had lift in the front, and one that was zero… We all raced that way. Your dad (Dale Earnhardt Sr.) had the same. Everybody had it. Then we got into the mid-’90s. We started making some serious downforce by 1993… In my opinion, it went off the rails (when) we started making downforce, and then people started saying ‘aero-tight.”

“They come with the five-and-five rule. That didn’t suit your dad’s cars, and it probably suited Fords better. I don’t know what the story was. Everybody’s calling aero-tight, and I said we need less front downforce. Your dad said we needed more, and that’s a fact. And your dad had a lot of pull, and it just kept going,” Mark Martin added.

The Next Gen car today generates much of their grip through a sealed underbody and rear diffuser. That creates a large pocket of turbulent “dirty air” behind the leading car. When a trailing driver enters that disturbed airflow, the front splitter and nose lose clean air, reducing front grip and causing understeer in the corners.

With every car producing similar aerodynamic performance and mechanical grip, following drivers struggle to close the final few feet needed to complete a pass, especially at superspeedways. Mark Martin believes the solution is to remove that dependency on front aerodynamic grip almost entirely:

“I’d want virtually zero front downforce in the front, or lift. Start with 300 (pounds) in the back. Maybe you need more. You don’t need a ton, but you need the front to be virtually nothing. If it’s nothing, it shouldn’t lose anything when it gets behind another car.”

His view is that reducing front downforce would make airflow far less influential, allowing drivers to race each other rather than fight aerodynamic turbulence.

Mark Martin explains why he never liked the Next Gen car’s design

Later in the conversation, Mark Martin suggested that NASCAR should continue exploring ways to reduce the aerodynamic influence on the Next Gen car. NASCAR has already reduced overall downforce by roughly 30 percent from the earlier generation, and also increased the horsepower in 2026.

Martin then revealed that his concerns about the Next Gen car actually began before it ever turned a lap (1:13:47 onwards):

“The first thing I would’ve said when I saw the first drawing of the Gen 7 was, ‘What’s wrong with the quarter panels? What’d y’all do?’ It doesn’t have a trunk lid. It looks like a hatchback.”

“When I first saw it, I said, ‘Why didn’t they push the body back?’ Then I got to looking more, and it’s like the rear wheels are rubbing the back bumper. Why is that? It just looks so not like a race car. Well the OEMs wanted all that.”

Despite those styling concerns, Mark Martin stressed that his biggest priority remains fixing how the cars race. Rather than focusing on setup changes, he believes the aerodynamic philosophy itself needs to change:

“I’d work with the engineers from the teams to make the underbody not work at all.”

While Mark Martin acknowledged the need for underbody, he believes reducing its aerodynamic influence is the best path toward improving side-by-side racing and giving drivers more opportunities to pass on merit rather than clean air.