Denny Hamlin had some immense praise for the crowd out in Atlanta for the Ambetter Health 400, which turned into one of NASCAR’s best races in awhile.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin spoke to the intensity of the crowd, and how much it meant to see the stands filled in Hampton, Georgia, as they were treated to an awesome show throughout the afternoon.
“I thought the crowd was good,” Hamlin said, following the memorable race. “I mean, the weather was great. That obviously helped a lot of things.”
After Hamlin shared some positive feedback, Hamlin’s co-host shared a belief that the stands were partially empty, to which the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman delivered an interesting revelation regarding the way the track operates at the moment.
“One thing you’ve got to keep in mind, towards Turn 1 I hear you. I see your point, a little but. But I thought — they took out rows. The top rows of Atlanta are now like this, there’s only one row per two or three rows. You’ve got like a drink rail. So they got rid of a row,” Hamlin responded. “So they certainly tightened up the capacity of it, but I thought, generally speaking, we’ve had really bad Atlanta crowds, and I thought this was a positive.
“I thought the crowd was bigger than what we’ve seen in the last few years, for sure. I mean, I could be wrong.”
While Hamlin was happy that drivers, fans and media members alike enjoyed the race, he’s hoping their bubble doesn’t burst when the Cup Series goes to Las Vegas next weekend, after back-to-back super speedway races at Daytona and Atlanta.
“You can’t set this race as a precedent. You’re going to get let down,” Hamlin stated. “I mean, three-wide, nose-to-nose, photo-finish. You know, these things should only happen every now and then. We shouldn’t expect it to happen every week.
“What I’m afraid of is we’re going to go to Las Vegas, and just because we don’t have the craziness of what we’ve just seen for the last two weeks, people will be — chemically, in their brain, to say, ‘Well that’s not as good.'”
Regardless, it would be an awesome thing if NASCAR made a couple more fans out of people due to the Daytona 500 and the Ambetter Health 400. We’ll see if Las Vegas can live up to the precedent, but it’s certainly going to be tough when the bar has been set so high by Denny Hamlin and his peers.
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