“It Was Important for Us Personally”- Denny Hamlin Refuses to Back Down Despite NASCAR’s Talladega Pylon Defense

To digitally preserve ages-old NASCAR traditions, the sanctioning body is apparently replacing traditional electronic scoring pylons with bigger digital video boards. As a characteristic novelty and a crucial feature of most racetracks on the NASCAR calendar, its absence was first mentioned after last week’s Texas event.

Many have since debated the necessity of these conveniently recognizable information beacons. But with the pylons absent once again this weekend as we wait for the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Denny Hamlin has led the charge once again for the drivers and the fans in an attempt to maybe make NASCAR go back on this recent trend involving missing soring pylons.

Denny Hamlin fights for pylon preservation at Talladega

After his final lap disappointments in Texas, Denny admitted on Actions Detrimental that the scoring tower was the first thing he searched for. However, as it happened, Denny “couldn’t find the damn thing.” With NASCAR following the “trend” for the second consecutive weekend in Alabama, pre-race conversations with Frontstretch revealed Hamlin’s disappointment at this abandonment of tradition one more time.

“It’s important,” reiterates Hamlin’s initial sentiments. He also explains how this absence affects many watching at home while referencing a conversation with the Chief Track Properties Officer for NASCAR, Chip Wile.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s #11 driver stated, “You don’t have any idea where we qualified if you’re an 11 fan a 42 fan, or someone like that. I think it’s important for sure. I did talk to Chip and he says they did think it through but they figured that the scoring pylons only serviced those on the infield. It doesn’t service those that are on the stands. I don’t know about that. But certainly, we know it is important to the race fans because they put it on TV for you. For the millions that do watch at home. So you want to be able to see where your driver’s at, I think that’s why it’s important and not only that. It’s just, that’s what a racetrack is.”

On the other hand, Denny Hamlin talked about how these minor changes also affect drivers’ race day experiences on the tracks. “It was important for us personally. Kinda know where certain guys are, certain times, and certain laps. So it’s important to us, but again the team could let us know if it’s super important. They have their own scoring pylons and our own time on the scoring, ‘cause we wanna know all the time on where each person is at and not have to wait that two minutes for a scroll,” opines the near-two-decade Cup Series veteran.

But in an evolving NextGen field, with different changes gracing NASCAR almost every weekend, Denny’s reasons stretch beyond just the utilization values of these scoring pylons.

Nostalgia meets Necessity

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Although the world’s premier sanctioning body for stock car racing recently revealed the reasons for the missing towers in Talladega to be related to aging factors, fans were not amused by a somewhat “half-hearted” explanation. NASCAR’s call to fans regarding on-track WiFi to check for updates also fell on deaf ears. A lot of this outcry is primarily over the fact that diehards, as well as drivers, have been using the traditional scoring pylons for well over five decades to help determine the various high-speed excitements taking place live on track.

An element of nostalgia finds its way into these discussions, and there could be nobody better than Hamlin himself to justify that sentiment, as he answered another question before his Talladega advance. The 43-year-old veteran driver reminisced, “Every time I would go through a tunnel, might be just me. The first thing I’d do is look at the scoring pylon and see who’s where, and what. So it’s maybe more of a sentimental thing from peers like myself but every track has its own ideas and we’ve just seen it over time. I think it started with Bristol, taking some out. Then it was Watkins Glen I noticed, and then obviously last week and then this week….” 

Regardless, Denny Hamlin was hopeful, looking forward to these adjustments only emerging as temporary and “not a trend” as the GEICO 500 beams on us from the horizon this weekend. But will the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway feel different due to a crucial absentee on Sunday?