VIDEO: Real Reason Behind Denny Hamlin’s Unknown NASCAR Retirement in Martinsville Revealed

No other NASCAR driver, certainly a top one, is having as big of a disaster of a season as Denny Hamlin. And that is when you include the win at Richmond, a win that became worthless in terms of momentum and morale boost after what happened in the following week at Martinsville.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver would’ve hoped his win in front of his home fans would give him a nice boost to finally gather his wits and approach the season with a new mentality. That his team, too, would take the win as a turning point to build the rest of the season on.

However, it didn’t happen, neither for his team nor for the driver. It seems now that Hamlin and JGR are in a free-fall, and what’s worse is that neither knows the reason, the cause of what’s happening.

This was something that a simple radio message from Martinsville proved.

During a restart, the No.11 Camry of Hamlin began slowing down inexplicably. “I went to pump two, it didn’t do anything,” the driver said to his crew chief, who replied, “Yeah, try to get it fired up.”

“It’s not gonna (expletive),” Hamlin fired back.

This was perhaps yet another mechanical failure in Hamlin’s Toyota, which still seems far away from a car that can compete for the win.

Instead, right now, his car would do well to finish a race without an issue, and that’s saying something.

The Richmond win of Denny Hamlin was deceptive according to Kyle Petty

After the race at Martinsville, former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty had an interesting assessment of Denny Hamlin’s fall from the top in less than a week.

“I think he won Richmond and a win is a win. But they went off strategy, not off speed. And I think that’s what we have to go back to,” Petty said. “That’s not a speed win, that’s a strategy (win).”

“So when you went to Martinsville, it had to do with speed. I mean, all those green flag laps, there was no strategy, there’s no strategy to be played,” he continued.

“And they just got outrun all day long. Really, from the time they started practice, they got outrun if you look at how they qualified and stuff. So I think that’s still a concern. That’s a concern for that team.”

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