Denny Hamlin commends Goodyear for giving out extra tires at Bristol
Denny Hamlin was complimentary of Goodyear following the Food City 500, for giving out an extra set of tires at Bristol.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin spoke on the situation that NASCAR found themselves in, teams desperate for another set of tires. Goodyear came to the rescue, but Hamlin specifically didn’t need them.
The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran managed his tires so well, he didn’t even use the extra set. However, he wasn’t mad other teams had the option, because the race would’ve been too extreme for his liking if they didn’t.
“No, because you don’t want to see it get too crazy,” Hamlin said, regarding whether he was disappointed in Goodyear giving out an extra set of tires, when the No. 11 had enough to make it to the finish. “We’re all running out there. You know, wrecking — I mean literally, we were running three seconds off the pace at the end of these races, compared to what we usually run it at Bristol. I mean, even on TV, I could see like, ‘Wow, we are creeping around the racetrack.’ But no, they needed to give us the extra tires, for sure. I mean, they kind of managed it out and saw that, ‘Okay, we feel like, if we can get these guys go 50 laps on a set of tires, that’s probably a good barometer, or base to go off of.’ And they added a tires accordingly.
“Now, we again — we still had another set left. But we also chose to not take tires, new tires at the end of the second stage, so we had an extra set anyway.”
Nevertheless, Hamlin was the shining star on Sunday afternoon, finding Victory Lane amid the madness that was the Food City 500. In the days since, it’s been theorized that the track’s temperature is the main culprit for the extreme tire fall-off, but at least it made for an entertaining race.
Hamlin didn’t use the extra set of tires, and he was still able to come home P1 on Sunday afternoon. That’s a testament to the veteran driver’s ability behind the while, and how impressive he was at handling his car at Bristol.
Moving forward, it’ll be fascinating to see what Goodyear and NASCAR learn from the entire ordeal. The race will certainly go down as a memorable one though, as the sport and Denny Hamlin move forward to COTA this weekend.