Denny Hamlin Left Puzzled by Kaulig Racing’s Bizarre Cup Sacrifice

AJ Allmendinger has been one of the favorites this season. The 41-year-old road course specialist is one of the drivers fighting for qualification in the playoff bubble battle. But looking back at Richmond, fans might have wondered why he was to be seen nowhere on the track. The reason for this was that Kaulig Racing decided to field AJ in the Xfinity Series race, and this decision came as a big surprise to everyone associated with the sport and more so to Joe Gibbs Racing‘s #11 Denny Hamlin.

Weighing AJ’s options, Denny spoke on his podcast Actions Detrimental. Alongside co-host Jarred Allen, the runner-up at Richmond expressed his shock over the decision to take a step down and shy away from the challenge that Richmond poses to Kaulig Racing.

Denny Hamlin was left aghast by Allmendinger’s decision to ditch the Cup race

“I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to me,” starts off Denny, answering Allen’s inquiry about his opinion on the sudden switch. Instead of appearing for the qualifying race on Saturday, AJ revealed in a press conference that it was a team decision and the major reason behind it was their record at Richmond. Denny isn’t really happy about it, as he believed that AJ should have given his best shot instead of going down to Xfinity.

 “There’s gotta be other factors. It doesn’t make sense to me, and this is my opinion because I have a podcast, and this is my job to analyze this. It makes no fu***g sense to me why you’d give up practice and qualifying at Richmond to go run a meaningless Xfinity race. And there’s no excuse in my mind why that Xfinity Series means anything to over what a Cup playoff berth means to your company. I don’t get it unless there are sponsor reasons, whatever, I can’t get behind it,” said the 42-year-old JGR driver.

AJ currently sits on the 18th spot in the point standings and has managed to keep his playoff hopes alive with four top-10 finishes this season and a regular influx of points. But deliberately moving down to the second-tier competition with the bubble battle increasing in intensity with every race sounds certainly bizarre.

Emphasizing the chance that every race provides to the drivers contending for a playoff berth, Denny then said, “I knew I was going to have to comment on this. So I tried to get as much information from comments made by AJ and the team or whatever. AJ said last week that, you know, he’s saying it in the moment he’s getting interviewed, but hey, we haven’t really been that good at Richmond anyway. You got a practice session, you got a chance to get better, why aren’t you there for that?”

“This is not an AJ decision. This is management’s decision. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Cup is what we’re all here for. It’s the highest motorsports in America, and you’re willing to start in the back and not get practice when you’re five races away from a cut. Doesn’t make sense. You’re giving up potential stage points.”

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As the podcast went on, Hamlin took a reference to his JGR teammate and the points leader, Martin Truex Jr. Truex had a rather quiet race at Richmond, but despite that, he managed to gather important stage points and went on to finish seventh. The Pocono race winner claimed that AJ could have taken a similar approach as MTJ and that would have only boosted his chances of a playoff spot.

“Let’s just say he qualifies 21st, 25th. You then give yourself an opportunity to do a different type of strategy such as a Truex and get stage points. Starting in the back, you got no shot at that. Because you’re so far back you won’t give yourself a chance at stage points. And every point for AJ Allmendinger is going to mean something.”

Speaking about the possible reasons that could have tempted the #16 driver to take this risky decision, Hamlin said, “We can talk about we want to go trophy hunting. Who gives a s**t about the Xfinity trophy? I mean, I guess they do.”

Charters in NASCAR help the teams in maintaining their financial value in the sport. They give teams value to hold on to or, as a sellable commodity, to guard their investments in the sport. Speaking on the essence of making it into the playoffs and aiding the team financially, Denny adds, “It actually means a lot. You know, the charters get paid based on where you are on a three-year running average of your points position.”

“I don’t know where that #16 team charter is ranked but we need to dig into that. But I would say if you can get yourself in the playoffs, no you’re not gonna be worse than 16th in points as an owner that year.”

Denny definitely wouldn’t be the first person to be surprised by this decision. Fans, fellow drivers and personalities in the sport have also failed to understand so far the reason that could have been forced the team to take the Xfinity route.

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