When it comes to the penalty issued by NASCAR against Bubba Wallace on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway, team owner but rival competitor Denny Hamlin is staying out of the process but understands why everything happened.
Hamlin has two hats that he wears at this stage of his career — driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 and team co-owner of 23XI Racing and they sometimes come in conflict. As a result, Hamlin says dealing with the immediate aftermath of the ‘out of bounds’ penalty was the responsibility of 23XI Performance Director Dave Rogers.
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With that said, Hamlin said on Monday night’s Actions Detrimental podcast that he understood why Wallace was immediately issued the penalty that dropped him from second to 29th.
“I mean, when I watched it, I was thinking that that’s definitely going to be a penalty because I’ve been penalized for it before, so I know and understand the rule and that it’s not that you gain a position but you can’t put yourself into position to gain a position,” Hamlin said. “Does that make any sense?”
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NASCAR Rule Book Section 8.3.2 states:
“If NASCAR determines that a vehicle goes beneath the double painted lines to improve its position it will be black-flagged. If NASCAR determines that a vehicle forces another vehicle beneath the double painted lines in an effort to advance its own position, the vehicle may be black-flagged.”
Hamlin is explaining that the word to is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the rule. It’s not about the result but the intent.
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“It’s not literal in the sense of advancing your position,” Hamlin said. “It’s making a move to advance. There’s a word in there that is very, very specific on the result doesn’t matter. It’s the intention. … You have to pretend that there’s a wall there.
“That yellow line, that is a wall essentially, that is not concrete. … And the minute that you step your foot out of bounds, it doesn’t matter whether you gained an advantage or not; that’s what they call. So yeah, while the finishing position showed (at first) that he didn’t advance, if you look out of the middle of Turns 3 and 4, Bubba was the furthest out in front.”
In other words, Wallace intended to advance his position and did ever so briefly. Ultimately, it cost him 27 points towards his seeding in the Chase for the Championship.
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“So he technically did gain, he gained the lead at some point of the move,” Hamlin said. “And that sucks because he lost a lot. He should have finished in the top three at least with the speed and everything. They came from the back again from the Ty Gibbs thing. They were fast, man. And listen, they were aggressive.”
Hamlin doesn’t even have a problem with his driver going for it in that fashion on the last lap.
“Man, going for a win, I think you have to go for it,” Wallace said. “But I mean, I need to remind you that inside the car, we can’t see the lines. When I’m going down the backstretch at Atlanta, the difference between the apron and the actual race track, there isn’t a lot of difference in the banking. …
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“Bubba in his in-car, and he probably made it up in his mind, was that he was going three-wide somewhere. ‘Wherever the biggest hole is, that is where I am going.’ When you turn there, that’s the moment you first see the line, but he can’t see it when he’s behind (Carson Hocevar and Ryan Blaney).
“So you don’t know where you’re at on the track till you get there (and) it’s almost too little too late.”
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