Denny Hamlin thinks NASCAR has slowed Cup Series racing down ‘entirely too much’

Denny Hamlin didn’t bite his tongue following the Daytona 500, believing the racing on super-speedways needs to improve immediately.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin started his diatribe against the way the Next Gen car races at super-speedways by explaining why the amount of drag the car creates is causing the issues we’re seeing.

“So the reason why this is going on, and there’s various reasons. The Next Gen car has a tremendous amount of drag,” Hamlin explained. “So the spoiler is giant. The car itself, even with no spoiler, has way more drag than the Gen 6 car. If you put the same size spoiler, and the same engine, in a Gen 6 car, which is the previous generation, versus a Next Gen, the Next Gen’s going to go slower down the straight-away, just because the body and how it’s shaped is slower.

“So with it having so much drag, it also creates a big air pocket, that allows cars to suck up into it, and just kind of run half-throttle, and yet be right there next to the car that it’s behind. So anytime you can run 10% less throttle than the person in front of you, it’s going to allow the fuel mileage to get way, way better. Probably from five miles per gallon to six miles per gallon.”

Continuing, Hamlin used the example of Daytona qualifying to make his point, as the lap speeds we saw last week were concerning for the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran and others.

“They’ve slowed us way down. Look at the pole speeds from the last — we haven’t run this slow for the pole in 30 or 40 years. It’s been, I mean we are creeping around that race track. They have slowed us up, in my opinion, entirely too much. Because a car flips over and it’s panic mode,” the three-time Daytona 500 winner said. “I get it, but if you look at, for instance, when Danica Patrick sat on the pole, she ran 20 miles per hour faster, but the pack speed was only like a tenth or two faster, once they got in the pack. Because cars already have less drag in them, by themselves.

“So now what happens is when they have this drag, when you create a big pack of it, it just makes the pack go faster, because you’re taking away the drag. So that’s one factor in it.”

Denny Hamlin: ‘You cannot get to the front anymore’ at Daytona

In the end, Hamlin believes NASCAR’s sacrificed the incredible racing and move we used to see from the series’ stars at tracks like Daytona and Talladega.

“You cannot get to the front anymore. It’s two by two by two by two,” Hamlin delineated. “You can’t go to a middle lane, third lane like you used to, unless the field is saving gas. Because if you pull out of line, it’s like hitting a parachute in this car. You have to have such a big run to pull out and then pass. The great moves that Dale Earnhardt made, the great moves that Tony Stewart, Dale Jr. made back in the day in these cars, you would see them in a line, pull out, pass and then get back in line. Because when they pulled out, they didn’t have all that drag. Their car had the ability to keep its momentum.

“Now, say your RPMs are spinning up. You can feel it. You’re in the pack of the draft. Immediately, if you pull out, you pull a parachute, and your car just stops. So you never actually get past the car you’re trying to pass, so the best idea is just to stay in line. If you stay in line, you’re in the safe zone.”

So what’s the solution? Hamlin isn’t expecting everything to go back to the way it was, but there’s certainly some changes he believes NASCAR officials should put in place if super-speedway racing is to return to it’s past glory.

“It’s a combination of many, many things. But in my opinion, if I had the knobs to turn on the Cup Series to make the super-speedway racing better, it’s to put it back like it used to be, in the sense of they need to run faster by themselves. To do that, they need to take some of the spoiler off, to create more of that bubble, so we’re not running into each other,” Hamlin stated. “That’s more dangerous than anything we do, how hard we’re hitting each other.

“I’m not saying go back to full bubble racing, where you just get close to someone and it pushes them away. … But you’ve got to make these cars faster by themselves, because you can’t pull out of line in them.”

Alas, time will tell if NASCAR listens to the concerns of Denny Hamlin and it’s other drivers, but it’s tough not to see the veteran’s point. Change isn’t a bad thing, and NASCAR has shown they’re willing to listen, and the way the 2024 Daytona 500 went down might force their hand.