Denny Hamlin assesses Corey LaJoie wreck with Kyle Busch at Pocono, who was at fault

The most publicized incident from the weekend at Pocono was the wreck of Kyle Busch courtesy of Corey LaJoie , who spun him out going into Turn 1 in the late stages of the race.

The accident took out several drivers and ended Busch’s day on the track.

Denny Hamlin had a chance to go back and review the footage. And while he has an opinion on who was at fault for the incident, he can see the arguments both ways.

“I’m not really sure,” Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast . “I tried to look at this so many different ways and I tried to see kind of who was in the gas, who was not, and it was definitely a weird scenario for sure.

“It’s hard to really, listen, it’s not hard to draw what I believe my conclusion is, and that is Corey was just entirely too aggressive in that moment, but I saw where he did get a shove from the 16 and likely was getting a shove to where he was like, ‘Well I can’t check up because the 8 car is right there.’ Now this is the first time he made a move on the 8, not the second when he hit him. So he’s got this run from the 16, and he pulls down, the 8’s there. So he’s like, ‘Oh s***, well I can’t lift because I am getting this shove and if I lift I’m going to get turned around.’ So he goes out to the left.”

That’s when the real issues started. With both Kyle Busch and Corey LaJoie on the low side of the track, Busch attempted to block LaJoie.

The two got into it, then the big contact came.

“He goes out to the left, so now by going to the left you can see the corner a little bit more,” Hamlin explained. “I can’t tell you how difficult it is to be 20th in line at a Pocono restart. You have no idea where the corner is, it’s very hard to tell. You’re kind of looking at the cones going by and saying, ‘OK, I think I’m at my lift point now.’ And you’re really kind of gauging it off the cars around you as well. But it’s very hard to see because you’re up someone’s rear end, you can’t really see anything.

“So he dips out to the left to see the corner. I think it’s to see the corner and not hit the 8 or lift and get turned. But then he gasses up and everyone else starts lifting at that point where he’s been re-accelerating.”

Now Corey LaJoie is going at a speed that’s not compatible with what Kyle Busch was doing. That put him into the back bumper very quickly.

Hamlin questioned if LaJoie hadn’t seen the inevitability of a crash based on his actions.

“The only kind of issue I guess I have is that if you are already four-wide, which they were, this is almost like a Joey Logano incident at Indy at the road course,” Hamlin said. “Remember when he came barreling in on the inside and wiped out like a bunch of cars? Because eventually you have to merge. Well, there’s not five lanes. And if you think you’re going to stick it five-wide bottom you are content just crashing whoever’s on the outside of you.”

So was Corey LaJoie at fault for wiping out Kyle Busch intentionally? That’s a line Hamlin wasn’t necessarily ready to cross, even after watching the incident several times.

Bottom line: It was a competitive race and a split-second decision ended up being the wrong one.

“I just think it was a tough scenario, and I don’t think there was any intent to it, but it just kind of looked weird where why is Corey still accelerating when others were decelerating a little bit for the corner?” Hamlin said. “I mean we had to make a corner. And especially when you’re back there in the pack, your lift point needs to be way further back than what it is when you’re in the first couple rows. First couple rows you’re driving in there just like you normally would under green. You’ve got nothing holding you back.

“But it’s such a logjam because people starting in Row 4, 5, 6 are three- and four-wide, they have to merge. And when that happens, you see it on the highway when you see merging happen, you usually see a stack-up. Well that means you have to back up your corner just a little bit there because everyone is trying to merge in just a couple lanes in Turn 1.”

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