Denny Hamlin Pins Blame on NASCAR’s Massive Oversight for Chase Elliott’s “Busted” Streak

Ahead of the race at Pocono in the NASCAR Cup Series, drivers were taken aback during the practice session when more than 30 drivers were found guilty of speeding on the pit road. Before the race, NASCAR allowed drivers to do a test run on the pit road and many drivers struggled to stay within the speed limit of Section 7.

While teams managed to fine-tune their cars for the race, title contenders Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, along with Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suarez were also found guilty of the infraction. Speaking about the dilemma on the Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin shared more insights about Elliot’s streak being broken and NASCAR overlooking a key factor at Pocono.

Denny Hamlin shares insights about Pocono Raceway’s pit road

It’s hard to imagine how differently would the race have played out had Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott not been found guilty. Getting a critical speeding penalty in Stage 3 of the race has cost both the Hendrick Motorsports racer, who are in contention for the championship, lose valuable grid positions. Elliott, who had not received a speeding penalty in 92 races before Pocono, was forced to settle for 9th place while Kyle Larson finished the race in 13th position.

Speaking to Jared Allen on the Actions Detrimental podcast, the 43-year-old blamed NASCAR for a massive oversight while handing out speeding penalties on the pit road. Hamlin said, “Pocono is one where they almost know they need to recalibrate it because it has got more sections than any other pit road. It’s like 18. Every two pit boxes is like markers for timing lines. But they’re all up and down. You can run at the same exact speed, same RPM, put your car in cruise control, and it’s going to read.. let’s just pretend the speed limit was 45 mph, it would read 43.5 in some sections, 44.7 in another, 44.1, 43.5.”

He further added, “It’s just so up and down, and it’s weird that that’s the case on a straight pit road. Usually, it’s really consistent but Pocono for whatever reason has a lot of variants in their sections. It certainly caught the field off guard there when everyone was feeding there in section 7 which was a very small section. We made adjustments on the 11 car all day to accommodate that. We didn’t get busted by it.”

With NASCAR getting inaccurate readings across various sections of the pit road, it’s not surprising that four drivers received speeding penalties. After the race in Pocono, Kyle Larson also reiterated that he didn’t go beyond the speed limit, but was forced to go to the back; just like Chase Elliott, who was third off the pit road during the race. However, there is also a possibility that the four drivers simply pushed their car a little too far, and were rightly found out by NASCAR.

It’s quite ironic that the only factor that may have stopped Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson from winning the race in Pocono was going too fast. Both drivers would have been in prime positions to challenge for the top spot, had they not incurred the penalty. With Larson going into the pits with 45 laps to go, while Elliott’s car looked lightning-quick all day, they should have finished in the top 3 based on speed alone. The ‘Tricky Triangle’ proved to be tricky indeed for the HMS duo, with Larson even appearing confused at the debacle.

Kyle Larson rues NASCAR’s unjust speeding penalty

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Having finished P13 at Pocono Raceway, Kyle Larson didn’t just miss an opportunity to secure his fourth win of the season but was also forced to concede his top spot in the driver standings to teammate Chase Elliott. With just five races remaining in the regular NASCAR season, Larson knows he cannot afford such slip-ups, especially with Denny Hamlin finishing runner-up and with 15 playoff points on the line for the driver who finishes first at the end of the regular season. Therefore, it’s not surprising that he felt NASCAR dealt him a harsh penalty at Pocono.

Speaking to Frontstretch, Kyle Larson was asked if he did something wrong or whether NASCAR made a mistake in handing him a speeding penalty. The 31-year-old replied, “I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to talk to, I guess the team. I think it sounds like, yeah, section 7 is different maybe than it was in the past. Bit of a bummer, just cause, I didn’t push it. I didn’t push it over our max. Like I never thought I would be speeding. So when they came on the radio and said that we would be speeding, I was surprised. So yeah, just unfortunate you don’t know how the race plays out.”

On the other hand, the #9 driver and his crew wasn’t too pleased either. As per the radio conversations during the race, Elliott seemed surprised, saying, “I don’t understand with the rest of the day had been okay. I don’t feel like I was that much different.” His crew chief, Alan Gustafson, took it a step further and blamed NASCAR instead, much like Denny Hamlin. “That zone was way off from the get-go. It’s been way off. You know, you’re just flying blind on it. It’s been wrong, so just don’t focus on it. Unfortunately, they didn’t admit their own fault there,” he said. However, this is not the first time that drivers have complained of Pocono pit-road malfunctions!

Way back in 2012, a record 22 pit road speeding penalties were handed at the Pocono June race, with 18 of them coming in the first 70 laps. While Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski and AJ Allmendinger were caught twice, Travis Kvapil was busted four times. Though the seven-time Cup Series champion finished fourth, he alleged some miscalculations, saying, “There is something wrong with the timing loop, and the orange line and the way the drivers interact with that,” Johnson said. “Normally, when we hit the orange line, we go, and I did that the first time we got nailed.” 

In a similar way, this year, Larson, Elliott, Gibbs, and Suarez may feel they were dealt with harshly by NASCAR. But the question they must ask themselves is, why were the other drivers not found guilty of the same infraction? As many as 33 drivers were exceeding the speed limit during pit-road practice at Pocono, yet only four exceeded the limit during the race. Perhaps the cars went beyond their limit in their final pit stop?

With NASCAR heading to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to race at the Oval after a three-year hiatus, Kyle Larson will hope to put this incident behind him and look to regain his top spot in the upcoming five races of the regular season. Most importantly, none of the drivers can afford such penalties at the business end of the season and will get to the bottom of the problem before next weekend’s race.

Do you think NASCAR’s oversight resulted in speeding penalties at Pocono? Let us know in the comments!