Inside a NASCAR cockpit, temperatures can become brutal, but Ty Gibbs believes that’s exactly how it should be.

Gibbs won at Bristol Motor Speedway making it his first win in his 131 Cup Series start and now heads to Kansas Speedway with momentum. He held off Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson, beating Blaney by 0.055 seconds despite a tire disadvantage.

Before the Kansas race, Gibbs said he wants to make the sport more physical by removing cooling suits, arguing it would also improve the entertainment value.

“I think we should rip all the cool suits out of everyone’s cars and make it a more physical sport. I think that would be very entertaining and bring out more emotion, obviously," he said.

"I think no cool suits — rip ‘em all out. I think, honestly, people would be pumped with that, ‘cause half the time they break on everybody and make it worse. I think we should rip all of it out, make it more physical,” Gibbs added.

The issue with cooling shirts is that when they fail, they can circulate hot water instead, making the already intense heat inside the car even worse.

There are examples of racers who chose not to wear cool suits at all, with Mark Martin being among the most prominent.

Martin did not rely on the traditional cooling suit but ran an air hose attached to his seat. Then there is Denny Hamlin, who also chooses not to wear cooling suits.

When the Air Stops, the Heat Takes Over

While cooling suits do tend to fail, their failure rate is also linked to how hot the cars get.

When the current Next Gen cars were introduced, drivers quickly raised concerns about excessive heat inside the cockpit, largely due to the exhaust layout running along both sides. In previous generations, the exhaust was positioned only on the passenger side.

Denny Hamlin spoke about this issue on his podcast, explaining how the conditions inside the car lead to cooling suits failing.

“It’s like having a fan on an ice cube. You’re driving, it’s blowing, and that gives you cool air. Well, once you go caution, your car stops going fast, and you shut the fan off.”

Hamlin explained that once airflow stops during cautions, temperatures inside the car rise sharply, often causing cooling units to overheat and fail.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Pulkit Prabhav