Denny Hamlin weighs in on Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski controversial ‘blend line’ violation

Denny Hamlin chimed in on the controversial blend line violation that affected Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski during the Brickyard 400.

Elliott in particular was fuming after being penalized for taking his car too wide when attempting to pit at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It caused a great debate as to whether or not you could go above the white line after committing to pit, and Hamlin made his opinion known on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

“The racing surface is always defined by a yellow line. We have it at Daytona. We have it everywhere. Even on mile and a halves, they don’t — if you’re on the bottom lane, on a restart, they do not let you go to the apron. They consider the racing surface anything above that line. So, I thought it was pretty clear,” Hamlin said, regarding the issues some of his peers had on Sunday . “I don’t know why everyone was (complaining). … There’s an advantage there, to swinging out wide. The advantage gained was two hundredths of a second. Like, it’s not that much. But they don’t want you going out there.

“Let’s just pretend there was a car two lanes wide, so the wider you swing, the better angle you’ll have. If you let people go above that white line, they’re going to go way above that white line. So, I think, they’re trying to keep you off the racing surface, and to me, the racing surface has always been defined as anything above the bottom white line.”

That seems like a pretty straightforward answer from Hamlin, and something we’ve seen at other tracks, aside from Indianapolis. Perhaps some drivers needed a refresher, after multiple seasons of racing on the road course at the location, instead of the oval.

Nevertheless, it didn’t burn Chase Elliott too much, as the No. 9 still managed a top ten on the afternoon. As for Denny Hamlin , he was caught up in a wreck and finished P32 in the Brickyard 400, so staying below the blend line didn’t end up working for him when it was all said and done.

Denny Hamlin updates health, reacts to hard wreck at Brickyard 400

Despite putting together a strong race at Indianapolis, Denny Hamlin wasn’t able to finish the race due to a late wreck. Going into the first overtime restart, the NASCAR veteran was collected in a fairly violent accident, and his afternoon ended in disappointment.

Alas, Hamlin is still looking for a Brickyard 400 to complete his run of the crown jewel races in NASCAR. His bid for the win would end entering Turn 1 on the first overtime restart of the race, when John Hunter Nemechek moved up in front of Daniel Hemric, who was already there with the nose of his car.

Nemechek bounced off the inside wall between the track and pit road and then up the track, collecting multiple cars and slamming into the wall. Alex Bowman was also caught up in the mess. After leaving the care center, Hamlin spoke to the media.

“I couldn’t see I just, there was a car coming across the track, I hit them,” Hamlin explained to Frontstretch .

The restarts were causing drivers to take, take, take. That was a result of the difficulty passing on the track: “Because you couldn’t pass, yeah. We’re all just kinda running in a line there, saving fuel,” Hamlin added. “It’s like a speedway race, but we were just doing everything we could to get to the finish and couldn’t make it.”

Denny Hamlin entered the race 20 points out of the regular season championship lead. He remains 4th in the standings, but is now trailing Kyle Larson by 43 points, as he’ll look to bounce back when the Cup Series returns on Aug. 11.

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.

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