Denny Hamlin claims he couldn't get within two car lengths of Joey Logano due to aero at North Wilkesboro
Denny Hamlin broke down why he couldn’t beat Joey Logano at the NASCAR All-Star race on Sunday. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin said the air at North Wilkesboro Speedway prevented him from getting past Logano who won the race for the second time in his career.
“We pulled away there at the very end. I thought we definitely had the two fastest cars,” Hamlin said about racing Logano on Sunday. “I would get close, and then dare we say it, aero. I just couldn’t get any closer than about two car lengths. The cars, they just don’t like air.”
Hamlin is no stranger to winning the All-Star race as he placed first in the race back in 2015. Despite the race being an exhibition, Hamlin has been on a roll the last four weeks, finishing in the top five in his last four races.
Hamlin would have loved to win the All-Star race since it comes with a $1 million prize. But the story of the night was the fight between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch. Hamlin admitted that nobody is talking about Logano winning the race.
Denny Hamlin knows that nobody is talking about Joey Logano
“I hate to say this — nobody gives a f*** about Joey Logano winning the All-Star Race,” Hamlin said. “That’s a fact. And I hate that our media was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re only showing the fight.’ Well, yeah. We gotta understand who we are. With all due respect to the 22, nobody gives a s***. That’s just a fact and if it was the 11, nobody would give a s*** either. It’s just this was the story out of it. Thank God, because this podcast would have been over 20 minutes ago.”
For Logano, it was a big win for him and his team since he has not had a strong 2024 season.”It feels good, Logano said at his post-race press conference. “It’s funny because the first thing that goes through your mind is gosh, I wish this counted for points. But let’s be honest, a million bucks is a lot of money, and it counts for something.
“Pretty proud of our race team today. Really this whole weekend and even back to the test here, we were able to make our car quite a bit faster at the test and then also go through so many tires. I said it earlier, I don’t know if you guys ever watched the movie Miracle before and the coach is making them run the suicide drills and he keeps saying again and again, that was Paul Wolfe to me at the test here. I ran over 800 laps in two days. I was sore. I had enough. It was warm out.”