Denny Hamlin felt vindicated for his controversial Atlanta strategy after only one lap in Watkins Glen over the weekend.
While Hamlin didn’t have the best race due to a wreck on the final lap in Atlanta, the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman stuck by his idea of trying to avoid the chaos, even if it didn’t work out. When he did the opposite at Watkins Glen, he was involved in an accident on lap one, and he had plenty to say about the incident.
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“It looked like the No. 7, Corey [LaJoie] just hit the rumble strips a little bit wrong, and it shot them into the door of the No. 8 [Kyle Busch], spun out the No. 8. Stack up ensued, and then [Ryan] Preece ran in the back of me. I was going to go around the outside of him, and then Preece hit me so hard it knocked me sideways and into the wall. … People wonder why I laid back in Atlanta, right? It’s because of this stuff,” Hamlin said , regarding the incident, via the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast. “It’s so frustrating, certainly, from my standpoint, this is three out of the last four events that I’ve crashed out, and I had nothing to do with it, and it was somebody else’s doing. But you know, what can you do? This is racing, right? This is — it’s part of it, but certainly it’s discouraging to not get the chance to race.
“I mean, you know, we worked really hard overnight to try to make some changes to the car that I thought were all going to be positive. Didn’t even get to try that out, like had I had maybe a lap or two, you know, I wanted to see, is this going to be better? Is it not? And now, we’re going to be guessing for next year. So, yeah, just not ideal, lap one, and just nobody’s willing to give in on that first lap, just because you know how hard it is to pass.”
Moreover, Hamlin believed he was going to be put in an impossible situation after the wreck happened, but as the day went on, a litany of playoff drivers had issues, which certainly worked to the No. 11 team’s advantage moving forward.
“Surely, yeah. I mean, absolutely. As I’m pulling out of the dust, I’m thinking, ‘Well, I don’t know why I’m surprised, and now I’ve just got to go win Bristol.’ So, you know, you never know what can happen, certainly during the course of a race,” Hamlin added . “But, you know, I was thinking throughout that weekend, ‘Let’s get the best possible finish that I can on the day, and I’ll still give myself a really good chance of going there and performing well at Bristol and getting in.’
“When I got crashed, and certainly, I didn’t see the No. 12 car (Ryan Blaney), but I knew my car was junk. At that point, you know, I’m thinking, I’m gonna finish in the mid 30s or high 30s again, and we’re gonna get one point, and then we’re gonna have to go win.”
Only six points under the cut-line, Denny Hamlin is headed to his best track in Bristol on Saturday, with a chance to get to the Round of 12. It won’t be easy, but the veteran wheelman couldn’t ask for the schedule to shake out any better for him, even if his strategies didn’t work in Atlanta and Watkins Glen.
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