Denny Hamlin Happy With Separation on the Track as Goodyear Forces Driver to Stand Out

It’s almost poetic that Denny Hamlin won the Bristol race on Sunday the way he did. In the pre-race press conference, he was asked if it was possible to build superstars in the sport anymore. He answered in the negative but suggested that for things to be different, the car needs to be hard to drive and the drivers need to be the stars of the show and not the track position. That’s exactly what happened.

However, his crew chief Chris Gabehart had a hard day’s work but no one in the #11 team was complaining. Equal cars meant that driving them was not much of a challenge and track position was the king when it came to deciding the finishing position. However, with high levels of tire degradation, strategy came into play like never before this season, just how it’s meant to be on short tracks.

Denny Hamlin hails drivers’ role in epic short track race

Speaking to the media after the race, Denny Hamlin was an extremely happy man, and not just because he won. Despite his sometimes controversial comments against NASCAR, the only thing he wants is for the sport to get better and more exciting and he finally got a taste of that on a short track. One of the Joe Gibbs Racing star’s biggest takeaways from the day was that the drivers were the stars of the show.

“This the first time a driver has played a huge role in a long, long time. A long time,” he said as per eminent motorsports journalist Kelly Crandall. Additionally, as per Peter Stratta, the driver of the #11 was a big fan of the tire wear. “If you changed nothing here, teams would adjust for no tire wear. This is what happens with tire wear,” he added.

Denny Hamlin had to work hard to get his first win of the season, as did his pit crew. But at the end of it all, nobody was complaining as they acknowledged that this was how short-track racing should feel. It was not boring, it had tons of strategic decisions, and the man whom Joe Gibbs Racing can thank for making those calls is Chris Gabehart.

JGR’s veteran crew chief backs Goodyear despite tires left in tatters

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The #11 crew chief perhaps earned one of his hardest-fought victories as he finally got to dip deep into his bag of tricks which has not been the case so far this season. As per Kelly Crandall, Gabehart believes that Goodyear should be happy with the tires they brought as they cooked up one hell of a spectacle. The veteran crew chief was also proud of the massive effort he and his crew had to put behind getting Hamlin first to the checkered flag.

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“Personally, hats off to Goodyear, Chris Gabehart said. He further went on to add, “I don’t think they should get heat for this. … I want them to make these drivers have to make decisions. The crew chiefs to make decisions.” He was then reported by PRN as saying, “It was hard on us, yes, but it’s supposed to be hard. Guys are supposed to struggle … it’s supposed to be hard, it’s not supposed to look easy.”

The Fun City 500 race has changed the complexion of how drivers, teams, and fans will now view short-track racing. It seems like the aero package sort of did the trick at a proper short track. Now, whether this was a fluke or can be emulated on other tracks of the same kind is yet to be seen. Do you think things will be like this on the short track now? Let us know what you think.

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