Denny Hamlin Acquits Bristol as He Lets Slip Alternate Theory Behind Goodyear’s Tire Disaster

Ever since the Bristol race kicked off, folks can’t stop gabbing about one thing: are the tires to blame, or was it the track acting funky? Goodyear’s director chimed in mid-race, swearing it’s the same old tire deal they tested last year here. But guess what? Denny Hamlin isn’t necessarily buying it. He’s got a fresh take on the whole Bristol track-tire mayhem.

Denny Hamlin’s hot take on the Bristol Motor Speedway chaos

Right from the get-go, it was apparent that the drivers were grappling with tires wearing out faster than usual. Right after the first caution on Lap 25, almost every driver made a beeline for pit road to swap out those worn-out tires. The tire madness sparked nine cautions, with a whopping 54 lead changes. Only the seasoned pros like Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr managed to navigate the tire trouble and snagged the top spots, finishing P1 and P2. But others, like Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick, and even Kyle Busch got caught in the tire frenzy.

Recently, Denny Hamlin, who won the race, spilled the beans on his podcast, laying it out plain and simple about what could have been the factor that caused the mayhem in the first place. He said, “We were, we were trying to point fingers at it’s the resin, it’s this, it’s that, and it’s like, no, there’s some, they mix, there’s something with the mixture of this rubber that is not the same as what they brought before and we need to identify what it is, because we just need to put a slightly lower dose.” And well, for Denny, it turned out to be a happy little accident.

But while talking with his co-host Jared Allen, Denny Hamlin got wind that Joey Logano got to know mid-race that the tires they were rocking were last year’s batch, same code and all. There were no changes in the tire recipe. Well, that got Denny Hamlin’s gears turning, and he came up with a new theory on the fly. He went, “If that is the case, then it’s a track temperature issue. I did see that the outside temperature of the last two Bristol races was 70 degrees because they were all night races. It’s the first time us being back at Bristol in the spring in four years. So it was cooler.”

However, he didn’t stop there. Hamlin also dropped a warning about the next gig at Martinsville. He reckons if NASCAR had a tire tango during last year’s fall race, it’s got to be the track temperature causing the ruckus. Martinsville’s another one of those concrete tracks that’s picky about rubber unless it’s at least 65 degrees outside.

And to clear the air, while he was still on the topic, Denny Hamlin made sure to set things straight about his horsepower rant on short tracks as well. He’s been talking about it for a bit now and is sticking to his guns.

Does #11 reckon this tire-and-concrete duo is the golden ticket for short-track showdowns?

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According to Denny Hamlin, NASCAR has beefier tires now and less juice under the hood than ever before. And no matter how hard they try, no aerodynamic wizardry [short-track package] is going to fix up their short-track issues. It’s all about grip on the tires or raw power in the engine.

Not to mention, the drivers, including Denny Hamlin, have been banging on Goodyear’s door for ages, begging for better rubber, and finally, they got it at Bristol. But then, during the podcast, Jared Allen threw a curveball at Denny: “Now are you more confident that you can recreate this tire compound that you don’t necessarily need the horsepower?”  And Denny Hamlin’s response? Straight up, “No!”

Read More: Denny Hamlin Exposes Carefree NASCAR’s Deception Toward Fans Holding Back Horsepower Solution

He seems to be adamant that until they figure out exactly what went down at Bristol, they can’t be sure if it’s the tire-track combo that did the trick. He was under the impression until the end of the race that some chemist messed up the tire mix, but since it’s the same old tires from last year, he seems to be sure that “it’s a clearly a track temperature thing that made this happen.”