“Give us a chance to fix it!” In September last year, Ryan Blaney was infuriated at Watkins Glen. Barely a lap had passed and Blaney damaged his car so much that it could not move. That was when he protested vehemently against NASCAR’s DVP (Damaged Vehicle Policy), as he was not allowed to repair his car. But now Blaney may be regretting his earlier anger – the revamped DVP was partly why his Darlington chances ended. However, race winner Denny Hamlin supports the change.

On lap 4 of the Goodyear 400, Kyle Larson spun off of Turn 2. The No. 5 Chevrolet rolled into the Hendrick Motorsports garage to get repairs. But that took them two long hours, so that by the time they returned, they were already 160 laps down. Yet, Denny Hamlin believes Larson’s return was crucial and that it won’t be the last time we see the DVP impact a race like this.

Denny Hamlin defends his old rival

Well, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver benefited from the new DVP. Earlier, teams were only allowed 8 minutes to repair their cars and get back on the track. Now that the time frame is unlimited, Kyle Larson and Co. could persist in their garage efforts. They came back and were an invisible factor throughout, except for the waning laps. At the exit of Turn 2, Larson abruptly slowed down his No. 5 car after seeing Tyler Reddick bump the wall ahead of him and received a blow from Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota behind him which brought out the caution. Ryan Blaney had just wrested the race lead from Tyler Reddick – and just like that, saw it slip from his fingers. That allowed Denny Hamlin to charge to the front on fresher tires and seize the victory with a blazing 9.42-second pit stop.

In a recent ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast, co-host Jared Allen added a smirk while pointing out Blaney’s misery. “The new DVP policy affected the outcome of the race.” Then, Denny Hamlin responded enthusiastically: “It did, yeah. And it won’t be the last, either. I mean, certainly, as long as guys are able to repair wrecked race cars.” Hamlin may have been the unlikely recipient of the DVP advantage, but he also saw the benefits that Kyle Larson could accrue. “You gotta give the 5 team [Kyle Larson] credit, like they worked really, really hard to get that car back on the racetrack for multiple reasons.”

The No. 5 HMS team got to continue learning during the race by going through pit stop reps, making adjustments, and learning the pit cycles. This proved a learning exercise for the NASCAR Cup Series’ second stop at Darlington this fall. That is what Denny Hamlin emphasized as he listed Kyle Larson‘s learning points. “One is that, ‘We need to analyze our car, we got to come back here for the Southern 500, and we didn’t get enough laps to even realize if our car is good or not?’ And so they probably went through a bunch of changes. They probably had an opportunity there to go through reps of fixing the car… Was this car optimum for the day? No, definitely not. But any kind of information that they can squeeze out of that last 100 laps or whatever that they’ve got to run is beneficial for them.”

However, despite being able to gain crucial lap time at Darlington, Larson was disappointed by how his moves affected the outcome of the race. “I was checking up, so that’s embarrassing,” he told his team radio after getting bumped by Wallace. Initially, many suspected that Wallace was the one who intentionally hit Larson to allow his 23XI teammate Tyler Reddick an opportunity to regain the lead he just lost to Ryan Blaney. However, even outside the radio conversation, Larson’s crew chief, Cliff Daniels, further confirmed that the suspicions about Wallace were wrong.

NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck posted on X, “Cliff Daniels said Kyle told him he felt bad about being part of the last caution. They were trying to stay out of the way of the leaders and stay low, and Larson checked up early to make sure he didn’t get into Reddick, but Bubba didn’t know Larson was going to slow down that much.” This sentiment was backed up by data from the race, which showed that Larson slowed down much earlier at Turn 2 than the leap before, causing Wallace to inadvertently spin him out.

While Larson is upset that his actions ruined the race, the broader discussion is about his right to be on the track in the first place. The Damaged Vehicle Policy was under fire last season, and so far this season, it hasn’t escaped criticism either.

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Another roadblock despite the change

The main purpose behind tweaking the DVP policy was to afford teams more control on the racetrack. After all, as Denny Hamlin pointed out, any mishap can be a huge learning exercise, provided teams are allowed. However, NASCAR’s policy may not have given full control to teams. During the 2025 Daytona 500, Kyle Busch was caught up in a crash on lap 186. The No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet returned to the garage for repairs duly. However, as Busch attempted to return to the track, NASCAR officials told his team that they would need to return to the garage area for further work. Under the new DVP, teams have to meet minimum speed – something which Busch did not meet. If they do not, they would have to return to the garage or be ruled out of the race.

The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion voiced his dissent then. “We got beat by NASCAR procedures again,” Kyle Busch said to several media members after the race. He continued, “(NASCAR) towed us into a work area where our guys reviewed the car, looked over the car and didn’t see anything massively wrong. All the wheels were pointed in the right direction. We put four new tires on it to go back out to see what the next process was going to be for us…So what are we supposed to do to continue to work on it now that we have four new tires on it and all the wheels are pointed in the right direction?”

Kyle Busch admittedly did miss the point about meeting minimum track speed while going on this rant. However, his dissent, combined with Ryan Blaney’s misery on Sunday, opens up a whole new can of worms for NASCAR to deal with. Do you think they will tweak the DVP after Larson’s mishap at the Goodyear 400? Let us know in the comments!