“I got it today. It’s you… The 11 is winning today.” Joe Gibbs Racing competition director Chris Gabehart got a ‘feeling’ prior to the Cook Out 400 race that his former driver was going to celebrate on Victory Lane. Denny Hamlin laughed it off at first but then had to eat humble pie when he won with a 4.617-second lead over Christopher Bell. Hamlin wondered about how Gabehart knew – but Denny Hamlin’s former crew chief saw the signs in the hard-working pit crew. The same signs reverberated in Bubba Wallace’s team – presenting a challenge to Rick Hendrick’s winningest team.

Over the off-season, the JGR team underwent a flurry of changes. At first glance, it seemed that they were for the worse. For example, Chris Gayle replaced Gabehart as the No. 11 crew chief, severing a 6-year bond that produced 22 victories. However, the results are already proving that it was worth it.

Denny Hamlin’s win has an undertone of excellence

Denny Hamlin’s disbelief of Chris Gabehart was well-founded. The last time Hamlin found success in Martinsville was in 2015, when Gabehart was a team engineer with the No. 11 crew. The only difference now is that his older crew chief oversaw the entire JGR team as competition director. With Christopher Bell’s three-peat success earlier this season, something must have changed. Even 23XI Racing, which relies on JGR for resources and which Hamlin co-owns, saw success in recent weeks. Bubba Wallace produced two back-to-back podium finishes. After leading for 56 laps and clinching third place in Homestead-Miami, he followed it up with another third-place result in Martinsville.

According to IMSA pit crew member and motorsports writer Bozi Tatarevic, the secret lies with a specific crew member. In a recent ‘Actions Detrimental’ episode, he spilled the beans on Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace’s success. “The big thing here with the JGR and 23XI pit crews – their jack moves this year…they’ve just made so much improvement on that. The next big frontier is the jackman and what he can do.” 

The No. 11 team’s jackman, Joel Bouagnon, did a phenomenal job at the pit stops yesterday. That is what made a glorious difference for Denny Hamlin‘s pace, as Tatarevic continued: “Denny’s jackman Joel, yesterday I watched him… He picks up the jack as he drops the right side with his left hand, throws the jack behind his back as he’s starting to run across the front of the car, grabs it with his right hand. The way he grabs it, he turns the handle automatically… So when he gets over to the left side, he can immediately go to jacking without having to turn the handle at all… Joel actually beats the front changer across the car, so the front changer never has to stop.”

These little details can change everything, and the importance of pit crews must not be understated. Team Penske would know exactly how this feels. This year, Logano has led the second most laps in the Cup Series but has just one top-10 finish (Martinsville) to his name. The reason? Pit stop inefficiencies. If you take a look at the data, the #22 team averages 11.430 seconds per pit stop for the season. This is the third worst in the entire Cup Series! Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin are the top 2, with both averaging under 10 seconds at 9.617 and 9.650, respectively.

This gigantic boost was enough to even topple Rick Hendrick’s men. Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson washed up in 4th and 5th behind Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Bubba Wallace. According to Tatarevic, a lot of hard work went into toppling Hendrick’s 29-win Martinsville dominance. “Some of the Hendrick teams did something similar but not quite as fast last fall. I think the Gibbs guys and the 23XI guys developed something over the winter… The No. 23 pit crew has also been a standout – they’re just averaging pit stops in the 8-second range for the whole race now… Two or three years ago at Richmond, the 18 or 19 crew set the record at 8.86. Now, the 23 crew two weeks ago did an 8.22… It’s insane how fast these guys move.”

Kyle Larson’s pit crew had a good day out at Martinsville, averaging 10.165 seconds per stop, but it was still short of Hamlin’s at 9.860, proving that no matter how fast your car is, a slow pit stop can ruin a race. Clearly, the Toyota teams of JGR and 23XI have advantages that nobody can match at present. However, NASCAR may step in and muddle up their upper hand soon.

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Fears of extended control

Well, that is part of what Denny Hamlin is fighting in the NASCAR lawsuit at present. He and Michael Jordan have accused NASCAR executives of exercising ‘monopolistic practices’ in the sport. Ranging from the charter system to not allowing drivers to race in other series, the complaints are varied. The sport’s overarching control also extends to the very heart of racing – the race car.

In 2022, the higher-ups rolled out the Next-Gen car. Although the reason mentioned was to cut down costs, it was simply a way to control how teams raced. Almost all the parts of the car are harnessed from single-source suppliers. That has led to increased parity on the race track as even the most talented racers find it hard to pass on superspeedways. But one thing remains untouched by NASCAR.

Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace’s secret recipe is still made by the teams themselves. However, Bozi Tatarevic warned that higher-ups could meddle with that in the future. “(In two years), the stops will get to I think a 7.8 or 7.9… I’m also interested to see if NASCAR wants to get their hands on the jacks eventually. Because I feel like that might be coming if these gaps start to grow…The wheel guns are spec, the jacks are kind of the big thing that teams can build on their own or buy off the shelf. JGR wins their own, Hendrick builds their own, 23XI buys off the shelf.”

Evidently, Denny Hamlin and Co. would need to be cautious of how they use their jacks in the future. But the added speed will probably produce more wins – let us see what changes that could lead to.