Denny Hamlin explains incident with Tyler Reddick during Roval 400

Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick made contact on the frontstretch chicane during Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte which threatened to impact both of their championship hopes.

With Sunday’s race being the Round of 12 finale, the margin of error for drivers near the cutline was small — especially for Reddick. As for Hamlin, the contact actually bent his left rear toe link, forcing his team to make the necessary adjustments to allow him to continue and advance to the Round of 8.

Denny Hamlin on the contact with Tyler Reddick, how it impacted his own race and his view of the Reddick rally. pic.twitter.com/5Ql6KQNfSX

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 13, 2024

“It hurt the car and knocked something out of alignment in the rear,” Hamlin told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “My steering wheel went from being straight to three o’clock. So, certainly had a detrimental outcome to my car but Chris [Gabehart] did a great job with his adjustments to compensate for the handling that the bent toe link did. Just a great job by the team, we survived and now we go race.”

Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick both advance to Round of 8

Hamlin rebounded nicely from the contact with Reddick, scoring a 14th-place finish. That was enough to move on in the playoffs, though Hamlin will start eight points below the cutline in next Sunday’s race at Las Vegas.

“It’s such a tough spot to be in kind of up like we were because the only thing that really can hurt you is a really detrimental day so you can’t be as aggressive as you really want to, but you can’t lose a bunch of track position either,” Hamlin said. “Great vibe, great job by this Sports Clips Haircuts Toyota team. Chris Gabehart and the team just did an awesome job of keeping us in it. Luckily we were able to come away with a top 15 there.”

Reddick, meanwhile, sustained a right rear bent toe link in the collision with Hamlin. The regular season champion had to grind his way through the field to get back in an advancing position, which he eventually did. Reddick finished P11, edging out Joey Logano by four points for the eighth and final spot.

Hamlin, the 23XI Racing co-owner, isn’t surprised by Reddick and his team’s resilience at Charlotte.

“I’m not surprised,” Hamlin said. “That team is really prepared. He’s a great road course racer and that team’s just been on it for the most part all year. To have the damage they had, I don’t know the extent of it, but it sounded like from Chris it was pretty bad. For them to come back and drive around us and finish 11th is pretty great.”