Love him or hate him, the NASCAR Cup Series is better for having Denny Hamlin in the mix on a weekly basis.
When you think about the Golden Era of NASCAR, you tend to think about these larger than life personalities, almost professional wrestling like in terms of their charisma or persona. There was The Intimidator, the Iron Man, Mr. Excitement, The Kid, Awesome Bill and the Rainbow Warriors.
That era gave way to Happy Harvick, Junior, Smoke, and the Jimmie Johnson Championship Buzzsaw.
NASCAR at its best was always about big personalities in competition and conflict and Hamlin is a throwback in that regard. A Virginia short track racer turned would-be NASCAR champion in any other non-playoff era, Hamlin would have fit in racing alongside the greats of those previous eras.
He’s a big deal and tells you he is too.
This isn’t to say that NASCAR doesn’t have bankable personalities because Kyle Larson is a generational racer who occasionally provides #BluntLarson soundbites when he is doing his talking on race tracks across the country.
Kyle Busch is as big of a personality as NASCAR has ever had, even if his cars don’t allow him to shine right now, and Joey Logano is underrated in that he is as close to a modern Dale Earnhardt Sr. as NASCAR has right now.
But the point is, Hamlin is the most audacious character in the NASCAR Cup Series right now. You’re not supposed to say ‘I beat your favorite driver; all of them,’ but does it anyway. You’re not supposed to say ‘Talking shit is my super power’ and does. And certainly, there has never been a driver that has linked up with the most popular modern sportsman in America to start a team and eventually sue the Sanctioning Body.
Hamlin has aura as the kids would say.
So the fact that Hamlin, paired with a new crew chief in Chris Gayle this year, still looks as competitive as era in a sport where Father Time is eventually undefeated, relish moments like Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. Even if you are one of the loudest detractors of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 team, enjoy in real time his battles with Larson, Logano, Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain and William Byron.
Recognize that someday sooner rather than later, like Smoke and Happy before him, that Hamlin is going to call it quits and retire (as a driver) to that fancy Lake Norman villa and he is going to take his huge literal and figurative microphones with him.
At that point, NASCAR is going to have one fewer audacious personality behind the wheel in an era that currently has more soft spoken and reclusive types than in previous generations and that’s going to be a sad day for everyone because Denny Hamlin makes this shit fun.
Here’s to hoping his younger peers are taking a few notes.
Option Tires, again
The NASCAR industry and community continue to look at the perceived short track problem with the NextGen car in all the wrong ways.
First and foremost, the race on Sunday was merely fine from an eye test standpoint, although a little disjointed. The second half, which is all everyone will remember anyway was procedural and Bell never really had anything for Hamlin.
But the first half had a lot of intrigue.
Consider the results of the first stage caution on Lap 31, one that Gayle told Hamlin in real-time was ‘coin flip territory’ about whether to pit for tires or stay out. Josh Berry led a group of five from outside the top-10 that decided to stay out and try to go the rest of the stage for a stage win and points.
Paul Wolfe opted for two tires for Logano and their Penske No. 22. Everyone else took four tires.
Ultimately, the caution came out again with nine laps in the stage and Berry would have won it if not for a Chris Buescher spin. Berry had to pit again because he would not have got the playoff point they aimed for on the next restart and Logano won it on his two-tire strategy.
Listen, that is compelling racing and a produce of this extremely soft tire package Goodyear is delivering on short tracks but to a point, going even softer isn’t entirely the way to solve the biggest problem.
At this stage, it’s repetitive, but the biggest challenge facing the NextGen is that it is a single source supplied spec car that goes the same speed because everyone has the same components. Having three, four or even nine seconds of falloff doesn’t matter if everyone falls off at the same pace because there is only one way to drive most of these flat short tracks.
It’s really hard to create separation.
So again, and this was written after the wildly successful race at Phoenix last month, but good racing is not parity but creating a degree of disparity:
But how could you not watch that race on Sunday and at least consider making the option tire concept part of the weekly show on road courses and short tracks. It’s not a novel concept by any stretch of the imagination.
Formula 1 and IndyCar features multiple tire compounds to be used in a single race. Dirt Late Models also have tire options for its races to create strategic deviation. Even from a historical NASCAR standpoint, the resulting safety concerns aside, there was a version of this dynamic at play during the Goodyear vs. Hoosier tire war.
Good racing is achieved through lap time variation.
The race on Sunday didn’t feature two tire compounds but the first stage was a reflection of what happens when you give teams an opportunity to get off strategy, giving up track position in exchange for long run pace or giving up long run pace in exchange for track position.
That isn’t a gimmick. It’s strategy. And sure, we can resent the lack of horsepower that would make a difference or the realities of a spec car but we should probably have good faith conversations about how to create a little more excitement for the competition product.
Goodyear says they are prepared and willing to bring an option tire to any race NASCAR wants. They’re downright enthusiastic about it based on how it helped the races at Phoenix and Richmond deliver subplots and competitive wrinkles over a three plus hour television window.
NASCAR, meanwhile, is reticent to deploy something with greater regularity which it could be accused of as being gimmicky, fluky or turning races into a game of chance.
But really, based on the first stage Sunday, and the timing of the cautions on Lap 31 and 71, there is already a luck element in races and that was just with one tire. An option tire for all short track and road courses races would be a welcome strategic element right now.
Create speed disparity with this otherwise equal playing field platform.
What to do about Xfinity
Similar to the above topic about how to create more excitement on short tracks, the dilemma facing NASCAR about the Xfinity Series roster at Martinsville also requires identifying the exact problem and targeting it with a solution.
Ex:
Frustration: There isn’t enough passing at Martinsville
Problem: The cars are too even and run identical times
Solution: Two sets of tires that produce more speed to be used strategically
Okay, so let’s try this here about the ‘absolute garbage’ and ‘lack of respect’ shown by the Xfinity Series field on Saturday at Martinsville.
Frustration: Most of Saturday’s race was a shitshow
Problem: Mostly no one respected each other as sportsmen
Solution: ???
This one is tough right?
It’s probably fair to say that most do not want NASCAR having yet another item in which it has to police or oversee. On the other hand, the chief starter does have a black flag in that stand on the frontstretch and there were so many instances in which it could have been used on Saturday.
This is especially frustrating because it’s not like this is a weekly problem in the Xfinity Series, not like it was in 2023 for the Truck Series, where NASCAR eventually had to sit the entire roster down and say ‘enough is enough’ after an embarrassing season that featured more cautions and caution laps than ever before.
However, this is becoming more and more of a Martinsville problem in both Xfinity and Trucks.
And in some ways, this dates back to last August at Richmond where Austin Dillon completely wiped out Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin with two moves in one corner to win the race, and it took NASCAR three days to figure out what should have been an immediate disqualification.
The finish to Saturday wasn’t quite as egregious but it was clear to anyone watching that Sammy Smith ceased to be a competitor in that final corner, coming from three car lengths back to wipe out Taylor Gray, crashing himself and teammate Justin Allgaier in the process.
That probably warrants some kind of black flag no different than most short track sanctioning bodies across the country.
For example, in the CARS Tour race at Hickory Motor Speedway last summer, Ryan Millington had a win taken away because he drove from too far back in the final corner and wiped out Connor Hall. Third place finisher Ronnie Bassett was awarded the win that night.
Another CARS Tour example, but also one used by the ASA STARS Series, occurred on Saturday night in that division as third place running Landon Huffman tagged Millington, running second, and was sent to the rear because the rule simply states that you go to the back if you’re involved.
In this case, Millington definitely chopped Huffman, leading to the contact and it was arguably unfair that Huffman had to be denied a runner-up finish because of it. And yet, he was fine with that outcome because it is a reasonable rule that is evenly applied at all times.
“I’ve always talked about how well that rule has policed itself,” Huffman said. “I’ve been running the SMART Modified Tour and they have no rule in place. It’s all subjective. So in that case, it was unfair but that is a consistent rule that if you make contact, you go to the rear, and we were just the butt end this week.”
That is such an unsatisfying rule though too, because despite how Huffman handled it, it punishes a victim as well as the perpetrator.
In this case, on Saturday, the car owners have a responsibility to clean their drivers up too. No doubt will Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt-Miller and LW Miller scold Smith for not only how he drove but also denying Allgaier and the company a $100,000 Dash4Cash bonus too.
It’s just hard in this era for Xfinity Series team owners to scold their drivers because they need their business.
A driver brings the check and in many ways has transformed the power dynamics and leverage of that business model upside down. Not every team has the gravitas of a Dale Jr. that you’re going to listen to no matter where the money comes from.
Young drivers absolutely should listen to the likes of Tommy Joe Martins and Jordan Anderson but who is to say if they really take it seriously.
But more than anything else, NASCAR could stand to tolerate letting someone get punched in the face for driving like a jackass without consequence. It’s still one of the biggest mishandling of justice last year that NASCAR issued a $75,000 fine to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for slugging Busch after he was the one intentionally crashed at North Wilkesboro.
When NASCAR has created an environment where the victim has to accept the offense, it’s tolerance to allow it to happen again. Let the garage police itself and NASCAR arguably won’t have to.
The best-case scenario, probably, is replicating whatever Truck Series director Seth Kramlich told his roster prior to the 2024 season that resulted in 13 consecutive months of largely professional driving across the schedule.
What happened in the championship race at Phoenix in 2023 was every bit the embarrassment that Saturday at Martinsville was and hopefully drivers respect managing director Eric Peterson enough to digest the message that’s coming on Saturday at Darlington.
