Four days after the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale, Denny Hamlin was still feeling the effects of a massive pile-up near the end of the race at Daytona International Speedway.
“The best way I can describe it is like I got beat up at a bar and somebody was kicking me in the ribs while I was on the ground,” Hamlin said Thursday during the NASCAR Cup Playoff Media Day. “That’s really all I can equate it to is that the whole right side just felt smashed.”
The wreck in question came with less than 25 laps left in the race and Hamlin running up front.
As the field ran in to Turn 1, clouds that had been threatening rain for a while finally let loose.
Upon running over the wet track surface, Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota snapped right into the outside wall. The calamity that followed included 13 cars and led into a nearly 3 hour and 20 minute rain delay.
The violent wreck came amid an increased topic of safety around the Next Gen car and drivers openly asking for NASCAR to make some kind of change ease the potential harm for drivers.
Hamlin said his wreck Sunday was one of the harsher impacts of his career.
“I’m sure (NASCAR has) a log of hits that I’ve taken over the years and so certainly from my standpoint, body-wise it was a much harder hit than what I’ve had in the past than any other wreck,” Hamlin said. “I’ll have to look at the numbers and the numbers might say that my body is lying and I shouldn’t feel that way.”
When asked, Hamlin said it was “too early in the process” following the wreck to have a conversation with NASCAR about potential changes to be made with the Next Gen car.
“It’s all in the hands of NASCAR,” Hamlin said. “It’s up to them to make sure that all of the drivers are safe and whatever the product they hand us, we didn’t design the Next Gen car. We left it in their hands to design it and they farmed it out to these companies to build and certainly in the old days, we would do things in our own race shop to make them a little better based off the feedback we have, but we just have to wait and see what they hand us.”
Hamlin is “not really sure” the car is as safe as it could be.
“Certainly it could be better, but anytime you build something that’s more rigid and built to last longer, the softest part, which is your body, is going to take the brunt of it,” Hamlin said. “Right now, that’s where we’re getting beat up.”
Hamlin, the co-owner of 23XI Racing, provided an update on that status of one of his drivers, Kurt Busch.
Busch has been out since July 24 recovering from a concussion after he wrecked in qualifying at Pocono Raceway.
Busch’s absence will continue this weekend at Darlington Raceway as Ty Gibbs races in his absence.
“He’s (Busch) getting better and he’s kind of plateaued, which is something he wouldn’t think would happen,” Hamlin said. “He’s gotten to about 80% and it’s kind of stayed there. I think the rest is just going to take quite a bit of time.”
As for whether Busch will come back at some point in the final 10 races, Hamlin said 23XI Racing will “leave it up to him.
“He’s welcome to come back next week or 10 weeks from now at the final race if he wants to. The 23 will be open for him whenever he wants to come back. But you know, he’ll have to weigh those decisions, not us.”
Yes, you read that right.
While Busch is the primary driver of the No. 45 Toyota, for the final 10 races it will be Bubba Wallace driving the No. 45 instead of the 23.
That’s in part because the No. 45 is still eligible for the owner’s championship.
“We felt like the best odds for us (was) to kind of stack the deck and put our best foot forward, whether it be driver and pit crew and crew members,” Hamlin said. “We’re going to try to do the best we can and we’ve seen it in year past. People remember when Jimmie Johnson’s team got kicked off pit road and they brought (Jeff Gordon’s pit crew) in, that was the team coming in and saying that they were going to come in and put their best people forward to try to win a championship here.
“23XI is doing the same thing, only it’s including the driver and what not because with Kurt out, it’s a lot of heavy lifting to ask Ty (Gibbs) at 19 years old to keep it off the fence for 500 miles at Darlington. It’s probably going to be a tough ask, so we wanted to put our best and most experienced guy out there to give us a chance to continue to move on and up in the standings.”