In the first three races of the 2023 NASCAR season so far, three different drivers including, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kyle Busch, and William Byron have won. Now, the NASCAR circus is headed to Phoenix for the upcoming weekend’s race at the 1-mile-long Phoenix Raceway track, which is quite different from the tracks we have seen so far early in the season. Recently, Denny Hamlin issued a stern warning to his opponents while revealing the ‘game changer’ upgrade his team, Joe Gibbs Racing will be bringing this weekend.
During the latest episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast alongside co-host Jared Allen, Denny Hamlin revealed that last year, his car did not stand a chance of making it up to the final four. Moreover, the #11 Toyota driver also expressed his optimism while breaking the big news about his team’s upgrades for the upcoming weekend in Phoenix.
Denny Hamlin makes a huge revelation about JGR’s upgrade
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In the recent iteration of the Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin stated, “We have, Ohh, the short-track package. We have a new short-track package coming this week. I do think I just need to delete everything that I said about Phoenix basically because that is going to be a game changer.”
The 42-year-old believes that JGR’s short-track package could be a massive boost for him in Phoenix. Moreover, he reckoned that most of the drivers and engineers would be focusing on getting their setups right this weekend, given that the downforce on the track is reduced by forty percent this year in comparison to the previous years.
Further, Hamlin seemed excited about the upcoming race and looked forward to leaving a mark after some fairly disappointing outings so far this year. Meanwhile, the 23XI Racing co-owner made a huge prediction about how the field would look like for the race. Denny Hamlin said, “So I think that you better pay attention to the practice times. Because I think we could see some of the biggest spreads from first to last than we’ve seen in a while until these teams kinda get a notebook under them.”
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The three-time Daytona 500 winner felt that teams might struggle to find their cars’ stability due to the lack of downforce, which could pose a huge challenge. In addition, he claimed that some of the teams could also end up surprising others with some unforeseen results during the race.
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