This is now, in nearly every likelihood, a must-win scenario on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway for Denny Hamlin and the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11.
Hamlin was fastest in the session at the time a chunk of rubber lodged itself into his throttle body, which led to a stuck throttle, and a spin that destroyed the rear end of one of the six remaining championship finalists yet to lock themselves into next week’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
“We had just come back out; we had just made an adjustment to the car and it was doing everything it needed to do, maneuvering through the pack pretty well,” Hamlin said. “I went into Turn 3 and the car just didn’t slow down and the throttle hung on us. That certainly caught me off guard but it happens.”
Hamlin was mostly just along for the ride.
“I mean, I tried to just mash the pedals as hard as I could,” Hamlin said. “I just kind of whipped the wheel as much as I could to the left to spin sideways but most of that was reactionary to keep the thing off the fence, because you know the implications, but I was just reacting.”
The team chose to repair the primary as opposed to pull out a backup car.
Hamlin enters the race with an 18 points deficit to the next available transfer spot on championship points but it is incredibly unlikely that he will score enough stage points to cut into that margin. Thus, he feels he has to win, and do it in a car that got crashed in the practice session.
“It’s hard enough to win these races straight up, even if you had the pole,” Hamlin said. “They’re just hard to win. Our battle is very much uphill but if the car has any kind of speed still, then I like our chances but getting in on points isn’t happening.
“We have to figure out how to win the race.”
Does he have more concerns that with this super soft tire compound that it could happen again?
“Yeah but I mean if there is a 1-100,000 chance, it’s going to happen to me,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin did offer praise for the tire Goodyear brought to this race and believes there will be chances to make up track position if his car is good enough.
“Well, that’s the good news, that I felt the tire was definitely an improvement from what we’ve had in the past,” Hamlin said. “It certainly had what I thought was probably twice the fall off that we had with the previous tire.
“So certainly if the race goes long enough and green enough could make up some spots there if your car’s handling well.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.