Richmond Raceway has historically been a great racetrack for Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 team. And in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400, Hamlin felt he had a car capable of getting to Victory Lane.
Hamlin’s usually reliable pit crew, however, had an off night. Hamlin also got penalized for speeding on pit road. He grinded his way to a 10th-place finish, but it could have been so much more. Speaking on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast, Hamlin recapped what went wrong on pit road at Richmond.
“Pit road was terrible and I’m including myself on that. … I was too low. I cut the radius too short,” Hamlin said. “These pit roads have a radius, right, any that have a curve to it. When we do our pit road roll before the race — if you see us a lap before green we go down pit road — what we’re doing is calibrating are the lights on our dash correct for running pit road speed. Then, the teams kind of get your numbers to see if you’re under the speed limit or not, where do they have room to go faster or slow down. It’s a way for us to calibrate. When we typically do that, we’re to the far right out near the end of the pit wall.
“What happened more than likely is I left my pit stall and didn’t go all the way out to the right. When you cut the inside of the track a little shorter, your distance is shorter. Even if you run the same amount of lights and RPMs, your speed will show faster. So, 45 mph on the very outside versus 45 mph on the very inside — you’re still under the speed limit — [but] it changes the time and will register a faster mph the lower you are. I certainly was so frustrated because I knew right off the bat we had a race-winning car. Usually, I know about five laps into the race, like is it doing the things I need. I notice very quickly.”
Denny Hamlin had an uneven night at Richmond
Hamlin’s issues didn’t end there. He was involved in the 12-car wreck on Lap 198. From there, his car no longer had the jump it had earlier in the race. Richmond got away from Hamlin, and that left him frustrated.
“It still had decent capability, but we had lost our edge. We became pedestrian at that point. We were just another car,” Hamlin said. “Again, I can get around the place, so I feel like I can make it up a little bit, but we were just kind of 10th-place at that point, which is where we ended up. It was unfortunate. We had a rough day on pit road, no doubt about it. Each stop was something different every time. You’ll have that, but this is one where I thought if we could control the race, we would freaking lead. My car had everything it needed to dominate the race.
“One mistake at the very beginning and you’re just never to be seen again. I was actually happy about how I was able to move forward. Again, testament to the tires, drop off and all that stuff. I was like, ‘Damn, this isn’t over.’ I got to 12th, 13th pretty quickly, and then I got in the wreck and was like, ‘F*ck.’ Darn it, man. I hate letting these weekends get away. There’s not so many left.”
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