NASCAR opens up on brake rotor failures at Nashville, how teams will have to adjust

Four drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville saw catastrophic brake rotor failures that took them out of the race. The new 2026 package at the track proved to be tricky for some.

Setups on the cars differed quite a bit, and it was something Dale Earnhardt Jr. noticed and pointed out right away on the Amazon Prime broadcast. Unfortunately, some teams didn’t get it right. Connor Zilisch, Ross Chastain, AJ Allmendinger and Chris Buescher all fell victim to blown rotors.

NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde addressed some of the failures on Tuesday on the Hauler Talk podcast. He didn’t sound overly concerned.

“Depending on what kind of brake package you use and setup that you chose, which is a team’s choice, that’s what we believe led to a lot of the problems,” Forde said. “I think it’s going to be pretty easily fixable.”

Others aren’t quite as sure. Dale Earnhardt Jr. sounded the alarm about the brake rotor issue and pointed to another track that will feature the same package later this year.

“Mark this down,” Earnhardt said. “St. Louis, we run the same package. St. Louis is harder on brakes than Nashville. St. Louis, you’re going to have some guys that fail.”

For Forde, it’s mostly about the teams getting together and figuring out what went wrong. As Earnhardt pointed out on the broadcast, many had different setups in terms of air intake over the brake rotors.

Some were completely cut off, while others had wide open air flow. Finding the right mix will be key, Forde said. So it’s business as usual going forward. Don’t expect any late adjustments from NASCAR to the package for St. Louis to alleviate the brake rotor issue.

“We saw 30-some cars that didn’t have any problems,” he said. “We did see the four, but we want to see zero. So I think there will be some learnings from the entire garage, but I think, suffice to say, we looked at it, and if this was back at the 670 (horsepower) package last year, we probably wouldn’t have seen the problems.

“It’s kind of the teams have to work through it, and I don’t think anyone’s calling for any change in that regard.”