Denny Hamlin, Chris Gabehart reveal what caused Martinsville practice wreck

During practice, Denny Hamlin was one of the fastest drivers in the field. Then, disaster struck when he wrecked. On the radio, Hamlin said it was a stuck throttle, but how did the NASCAR driver go from a good throttle to a stuck one?

Whatever they have in that race car, this No. 11 team wants to keep. They are not going to go to a backup car unless they have to. But there was one gremlin that doomed them in practice.

Chris Gabehart and the team made a big discovery in the garage.

“I don’t know, the car didn’t slow down the throttle hung on me,” Denny Hamlin said to Marty Snider. “Apparently, Chris sent me a picture, and there’s a huge chunk of rubber that’s in the throttle body that hung it wide open.”

As far as his action on the track, Hamlin knew he couldn’t go head-on into the wall.

“I mean I try to do everything I can to not hit head-on. At that point, I’m just doing everything I can to keep the thing spun around so I can try to maybe get the car to slide forward instead of backwards. But obviously this small track and whatnot, you just can’, it’s hard to keep it off the wall here.”

With the car saved, Chris Gabehart and team are hoping to rebuild it and put what they see as their best chance to win back on the track.

Chris Gabehart putting Denny Hamlin’s car back together

So, why didn’t the No. 11 team go to a backup? Well, there is something about this car that they are trying to maintain. Whatever that is internally or with the engine or whatever it is, they want it.

Chris Gabehart explained why they were even able to go this route.

“Well, this is a totally different era and truthfully most of the clip looks fine, we think. We’re going to take a couple measurements here in just a minute and then it would just be replacing some body panels and a bumper and getting back to it.

“There was a lot of good things about this car,” Gabehart explained. “Obviously, it fired off really fast and then was even better yet there. And unfortunately just swallowed a big clump of rubber and got stuck in between the throttle stop and the throttle lever and hung the throttle. So, you know it wasn’t anything anybody did wrong. It’s just a freak deal and we’re going todo the best we can to get this fixed, but we got to get some more information first.”

Denny Hamlin will be in the rear of the field. He won’t qualify. But if this car is as good as the team thinks it is, he might have a fighting chance on Sunday.