The Atlanta Motor Speedway saw a race filled with thrilling actions. Wrecks and spin-outs seemed to be the norm of the day. Adding to the excitement, the persistent rain posed a bait to the drivers to finish in top placings as early as possible, worrying that it might force NASCAR to prematurely call off the race.

With an unforgiving downpour in the early laps of Stage 3, NASCAR had to call it a day, cutting the race 75 laps short.

However, the significance of this race extends beyond its abrupt ending. The continuous threat posed by the weather put teams and crew chiefs up to the test. Opting to keep their cars running despite it requiring pit stop adjustments, Denny Hamlin‘s team found themselves in a similarly sticky situation.

As they say, a poor craftsman blames his tools

During Stage 2, with only six laps remaining, Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman were running in 6th and 7th place respectively. Unexpectedly, Bowman’s car lost traction and spun out, colliding with the left rear of Hamlin’s #11. Both drivers were able to regain control and rejoin the race on the track.

At this point, NASCAR had announced that any lap could potentially be the final one due to an approaching storm. Despite the uncertain conditions, Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing team made a strategic decision to keep their car on track. However, Denny revealed in his podcast that his crew chief, Chris Gabehart, had advised him to pit and change tires. But Hamlin wanted to keep racing and maintain his track position.

During Actions Detrimental Hamlin said, “I was actually debating and even thinking about Chris that should I even after I spun like I didn’t think my tires really hurt at all. I didn’t have any vibration. I was like, ‘Just stay out. Even though I wrecked just stay out, had enough fuel.’”

“We thought like if you pit now, you probably gonna have rain before your fuels run out. Even though it gonna put you in an awkward time of pitting in stage 3, we didn’t care because we think it didn’t gonna get to that point. And when I spun, it was like nothing wrong. I said, ‘My wheels clocked a little bit to the left. We have little bit toe damage to the left rear tire from where he hit that.

“But I thought the strategy might be just to stay put, get a track position right back where we were. But he [Chris] wanted to change tires because I did slide them for a certain amount of time to the asphalt there.”

Denny believed that his crew chief’s pit strategy decision had a detrimental impact on his race performance, causing him to lose multiple positions and ultimately finish in 24th place. Regarding racing on wet tracks, Hamlin seemed to in par with fans, that is, wanting an uninterrupted complete race. In fact, Hamlin has been singing the same song since last year.

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Denny Hamlin recalls the rigors of racing in imperfect weather conditions

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NASCAR fans vividly recall last year’s Daytona race, where a massive crash involved nearly every car on the track. Taking a lesson from that incident, NASCAR made the decision to call off the race 75 laps early in order to prioritize safety.

Amidst the intense racing, Hamlin stated, “I mean you could just see everyone’s car was on complete edge, we were all over the place and you couldn’t. We didn’t really run too wide that much just because the cars were so unstable by themselves, you know, in the pack.” 

He continued, “But as it cooled off and as the track started to lay rubber it started to get more grippy. And the more grippier it got, the more we were able to be aggressive, running side by side, 2 and 3 wide. So, it stinks. Because the race, like I said, it was just starting to get hot, starting to get good.”

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