Part Failures: Blame the Part? Or the People?

When parts failures take teams out of a race, those of us on the outside are often quick to suggest something is wrong with the part. But often, it’s that teams are pushing the part outside its intended use. No manufacturer deserves to be pilloried in the press for providing a part that meets specs but is pushed past its limits by the user.

Steering Part Failures

As an example, let’s look at a particular type of parts failure: the steering issues that have popped up in the first races of the 2025 season. Note that it’s impossible to identify every issue, so I may have missed a few. That only means you should view these numbers as a floor. The actual numbers may be slightly higher, but they are not lower.

Here’s what I’ve found:

• Tyler Reddick had steering problems at Phoenix last week. He felt the same types of vibrations in practice, too.
• Riley Herbst had steering issues in practice before the Phoenix race, with power steering going out on loading.
• Michael McDowell started from the back of the field of Phoenix after changing a steering rack.
• McDowell had steering issues at Atlanta bad enough that he lost the draft.
• Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski had steering issues during practice for the Duels.
• Christopher Bell started from the back for his Daytona Duel after changing the power steering pump.
• Chase Briscoe retired from this year’s Clash with steering issues.
• Herbst’s #35 retired from the last-chance qualifier with steering issues.

At least nine issues in the very first part of the season seems like a parts failure problem. But let’s look a little closer.

• This list includes non-points races. There is often some working out of issues in the first (non-points) races of the year.
• Five of the nine issues listed happened with Toyotas.
• McDowell had steering issues in two of the four points-paying races but none of the other Spire cars have had similar problems.

The most important thing to note, however, is that there were four issues in four points-paying races. But 154 cars ran those four races. That’s a 2.6% problem rate. And, of course, that’s for a very small number of races.

2024 Steering Part Failures

So let’s look at one complete season of power steering issues. Again, these are all of the issues I could document. If you know I missed one, let me know so I can update the data.

Steering-Related Retirements

I count seven retirements in 2024 attributed to steering issues, as summarized in the chart below.

DNFS Due to Steering Issues

Race	Track	Team	Driver	Car #
2024-06	COTA	Front Row Motorsports	McDowell	34
2024-08	M’ville	Power Source	Starr	66
2024-09	Texas	Richard Childress	A Hill	33
2024-14	Charlotte	NY Racing Team	Yeley	44
2024-16	Sonoma	Rick Ware Racing	Haley	51
2024-26	Darlington	Power Source	T Hill	66
2024-29	Bristol	Rick Ware Racing	Grala	15

That makes one short oval (1 mile to 1.49 miles) failure, and two failures each at intermediate, road course and super-short (under 1 mile) tracks.

The teams affected tend to fall in the mid- to low- tiers. Three entries are part-time teams and the Richard Childress Racing entry was a part-ime car.

Non-DNF Steering Issues

I also identified seven additional power steering issues that didn’t result in DNFs, but did significantly impact the drivers’ finishes.

Incidents due to Steering Issues

Track	Team	Driver	Car #
Pocono	Trackhouse Racing	Chastain	1
Texas	Rick Ware Racing	Grala	15
Bristol II	Power Source	Bilicki	66
M’ville I	Richard Childress	Dillon	3
Bristol II	Wood Brothers Racing	Burton	21
Darlington II	Legacy Motor Club	Jones	43
M’ville II	Hendrick Motorsports	Bowman	48

This adds a 2-mile oval, another 1.5-mile oval, four super-short ovals and one short oval to the above stats. There are higher-tier teams here, too.

Changing Steering Components Before a Race

I found five cases of drivers who had to start a race from the rear because they changed steering components. Sorry I don’t have a pretty chart for these.

Race	Team	Driver
Michigan	Penske	Logano
COTA	RFK	Buescher
Las Vegas I	Rick Ware Racing	Haley
Chicago Street Race	Hendrick Motorsports	Byron
Texas	Rick Ware Racing	Grala

Analysis

I counted 19 steering-related incidents in 2024.

• 6 happened at super-short tracks: Martinsville (4) and Bristol (2)
• 5 happened at intermediate tracks: Texas (2), Charlotte (2) and Las Vegas (1)
• 3 were at road courses: COTA (2), Sonoma (1)
• 2 were at Darlington (a 1-1.49-mile oval)
• 1 was at the only street course on the schedule

If we lump Chicago in with the road courses, then more than half of the issues came at very short ovals or road courses.

While such a list might look like systemic parts failure problem, there were 1356 cars running points races in 2024. That makes for a 1.4% failure rate. This isn’t a number that signals an issue with the supplier. It’s the same issues as the very small number of wheels coming off cars. It’s more likely due to human error than a design or production flaw.

How to Decide: Part Failure vs. People Failure

As you form your opinion, look for the following points:

DId the issue happen around a particular team or manufacturer?

• In 2009, four out of five Roush engines failed at Las Vegas. Jack Roush noted that they had chosen a rear gear that increased engine speed by 200 rpm and that the tires had less falloff than expected.
• The same year, Hendrick Motorsports had engine problems at California, which they tracked down to a specific batch of parts.
• Toyota (still in 2009) had engine failures they attributed to trying to use a lighter lubrication to save four or five horsepower.

This was before sole-source parts, but it illustrates how team decisions can produce parts failures. Two of these issues were due to team choices and one to actual parts failures. But the latter case is actually pretty rare.

More recently, Riley Herbst, John Hunter Nemechek and Christopher Bell all started Las Vegas from the back because each changed their car’s throttle body. They represent three different teams, but all are Toyotas.

Are lower-tier, newer and/or part-time cars teams more affected?

In last year’s steering data, retirements mostly affected these types of teams. Putting together a car with everything absolutely correct is a tough job because there are so many places for things to go wrong. That’s especially true if you’re trying to push everything to its limit.

Smaller and part-time teams generally have fewer people and fewer engineers. In some cases, teams are put together specifically around one car for one race, so there’s the added complication of the team members not having an established rhythm.

What percentage of the parts failed?

When there’s a systemic problem, it happens to everyone. Cases in point:

• The 2008 Brickyard 400 was an obvious systemic problem. NASCAR had to throw cautions every 10-12 laps because the tires wore so quickly. The Gen-5 car was brand new and hadn’t been raced before at Indy. The issue affected absolutely everyone. Notably: NASCAR apologized for not having the right car-tire combination, and Goodyear ran two additional tire tests, one with 12 teams present.
• Last year’s spring Bristol race produced a fortuitous ‘parts failure’ when everyone’s tires wore much more quickly than anticipated. The big problem there was trying to duplicate the situation.

A failure rate in the single digits can’t be called a systemic parts failure.

Now, there will occasionally be parts that slip through quality control. That’s why teams have established their own QC processes to provide a second check. It’s another reason why the playing field will never be completely ‘level’ in NASCAR: Smaller teams can’t afford the high-precision metrology necessary to automate this procedure.

I understand that Larry McReynolds will have some insider info on what exactly is happening with the steering failures on Sunday’s race broadcast (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1). Tune in to learn what he’s sussed out from his discussions with the folks who have their hands on the car.

And the next time someone cries out ‘part failures’, refer to the things you should consider before you agree.