“More Ls Than Ws” – Denny Hamlin Brings the Receipts on SMI’s Years of Incompetence and Failures

After a bit of a showdown with Marcus Smith, Denny Hamlin isn’t shy about pointing fingers at SMI for what he sees as a long history of dropping the ball, backed up by the cold, hard facts. Sure, tracks getting repaved is pretty standard in NASCAR since they get beaten up by years of tire action. But the real deal is making sure those new surfaces jive with the cars and tires hitting them.

Hamlin’s take? While ISC seems to get that, reinvesting the TV revenue cash back into the sport, Marcus Smith’s SMI-owned tracks haven’t been playing the same game. Spilling the beans on his podcast, Hamlin talked about how these track troubles are more than just a nuisance—they could be turning fans off, too.

Denny Hamlin drops some truth about the tracks SMI’s been handling

Speedway Motorsports, LLC, is the big dog behind 11 top-tier racing spots in the U.S., with gems like Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway, Texas Motor Speedway, Dover Motor Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway, Kentucky Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway in prime markets. Despite this, Hamlin points out that only a handful of these SMI-owned tracks have seen any real work done on them, and even then, they’re still a hot mess.

Hamlin’s hoping for a bit more from these places, saying, “Hopefully we get… you know, we hold these tracks to a little bit higher standard. what we’ve been a hell of them. Holding him too. because certainly… I don’t think that when you look at Atlanta like we had to repay Atlanta, off of turn two, I think multiple times before we even got to track, bump at the car, cars would go airborne. And it was like… Thing they I mean they actually reprofiled the whole track so how did that happen? I don’t know. It’s, uh… Yeah, Sonoma’s got an issue, no Wilkesboro does, did, and will have an issue in the future. That’s three in a row.”

While they’ve given a couple of things a shot, Hamlin’s convinced there’s a mountain of work left. So far, it’s been more about facing letdowns than celebrating successes with the track fixes. “We threw dirt on Bristol. Texas- It needs to be completely redone. I don’t know how you fix Texas at this point. But there’s been a few wins, I guess. If you really want to tally up the score, but… It’s been in my eyes more Ls than Ws for sure on the risks that they’ve taken.“

Furthermore, when Jared Allen asked Hamlin if redoing work takes more time and dough, Hamlin’s answer was a yes. If they have to go back and fix things. He pointed out the band-aid fixes at Sonoma raceway, where they had to patch up turns 2, 3, 7, and 11 as an example. But Hamlin didn’t just leave it there. The #11 JGR driver also laid out how these patch-up jobs are messing with the quality of racing, both now and down the road.

Toyota Camry No. 11 driver spilled the beans on how SMI’s slip-ups are throwing a wrench in racing

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It’s a total drag when a race gets paused because the track’s in rough shape, not just for the drivers who lose their groove but for the racing fans who show up for some live action, too. Denny Hamlin, hitting the same note on his podcast, said: 

“It just being a bad look for this for it’s a nuisance and when you got a sports car series there waiting to get on track because you’re waiting for the track to be paved. like that. I don’t know. That’s just a bad look. You know, it’s, it’s, um… You know, things like the… Things like this. whether you like it or not, it affects and sentiment. of your track. And… When you look at Kentucky, We used to go to Kentucky there was a traffic debacle.”

He continued, “The very first year, people couldn’t even get into the track before the race started. And what happened? It lost a day. Nashville- It was a traffic debacle the first year. And… You just, you can’t. You keep drawing all these. parallels to… How does that happen? And it’s happening.”

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When the rubber meets the road, the track’s condition really starts to show. Like what went down at Sonoma—if the asphalt’s not up to snuff, whether it’s on the cheap side or not laid right for today’s tires, it’s the fans who get peeved. And when the fans are ticked off, well, that’s usually when tracks start seeing their days numbered.