Rain tires, late race cautions and a dramatic OT finish, the USA Today 301 had it all. As the race at New Hampshire zoomed to its end, we saw Michael McDowell make an ambitious move on Ryan Blaney with nine laps to go. Chasing back-to-back Cup Series wins, Blaney finished the race in 25th place after McDowell spun him out. The 2023 Cup Series Champion was none too pleased about it, and Denny Hamlin agreed with him in questioning the #34’s wisdom for making such a “low percentage” move.

Blaney had a strong start but his hopes were dashed by an aggressive move from during a late restart. McDowell, starting alongside Blaney on the front row, made a bold attempt to maintain his position, resulting in contact with Blaney’s No. 12 car and bringing out a caution. While it may have caught Blaney off-guard, Hamlin claims he saw it coming.

Denny Hamlin’s spidey sense kicks in once again at Loudon

While he wasn’t in the thick of the action in this instance, Denny Hamlin once again called it out even before the incident unfolded. Although McDowell argued that he was going for a win and had to make a bold move to stay in contention, Hamlin didn’t agree with his stance. He said, “You should play my radio before we went green. When they told me that the 34 was on the front row with the 20, I literally said, Oh, I see this one coming, and then the first corner, caution’s out 34. ahh.. Saw that one coming.”

As McDowell was restarting on the front row with his teammate Christopher Bell, Hamlin said he knew something was going to happen. Not only that, most fans will also remember that it was McDowell who triggered the ‘Big One’ on Talladega on the final lap in April. After the Blaney incident, McDowell said that he was in a “do or die” situation and had to go for it. But Hamlin disagreed.

“I thought if he was gonna crash, it is because he drove in on the 20. Then the explanation to me though of ‘Well, ‘I got to do everything I can because I’m in this situation’… you are not gonna win the race from third,” Hamlin said on the Action Detrimental podcast episode aired on July 24.

Hamlin somehow has honed the skill of predicting the wreck during the races. Remember the Netflix documentary where he spoke about his intuition of a bad wreck during the Daytona race that caused the horrifying crash involving Ryan Preece? Back then, he decided to bow out of the aggression to avoid the detrimental action of a wreck, and guess what? He was right.

Hamlin also added a rather sensible approach by McDowell over making that aggressive move could’ve helped. The JGR driver said, “So you gotta get around Blaney cleanly and then go ahead and make a bonsai move on the 20 go right ahead… I side with Ryan on this one, very low percentage move and it wasn’t the move to win the race. It was for second place. You gotta get to the second before you can make a crazy move.”

As McDowell dived into Blaney’s #12, both the cars slid across the track. This led Blaney to yell over his radio, “What the f**k did he think was going to happen there? I know exactly what happened. He bombed it in there like a moron.”

The good thing was that Michael McDowell apologized for his mistake and even had a peaceful chat with Blaney after the race. But Blaney wasn’t pleased. “An apology’s nice, but it’s not going to bring back what he did,” he said. After his victory in Iowa, Blaney had hoped for another win in New Hampshire, however, McDowell’s actions ended his chances.

With rain sweeping the track, wet-weather tires came into play and it was Christopher Bell who emerged victorious in overtime. But what prompted McDowell to take the risk in the first place?

Did the pressure of playoff qualification got the better of the FRM star?

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With eight races to go in the regular season, the playoff race is certainly heating up. As things stand, McDowell sits 22nd in the points standings, 71 points shy of the cutline. It is indeed hard to see him make it to the next round purely based on points. And with uncertain and damp racing conditions at Loudon, the driver felt it was his shot to go for the win at all costs.

“I was just explaining that I was in a do-or-die situation. I had to go for it.” McDowell said this in an interview with Bob Pockrass. “So I hate it for Blaney, and I know it ruined his day and ruined my day too, and I apologized to those guys for that. But I’m at a point in the season where I have to go for it, too. So you don’t know until you get there, and I was just in there a little too deep.”

As for McDowell, it is important that he pulls up his socks and tries to gain some points, however, for Blaney, it will be interesting to see if he returns the favor [sarcastically] to his fellow Ford driver in the upcoming races. Hopefully, this is not the case, as it will only add to his troubles and push him further away from making it to the last 16.