Denny Hamlin believes NASCAR’s short-track racing problem could be solved with some help from none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. moving forward.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin proposed the idea of allowing the retired NASCAR legend to test a tire out for NASCAR and Goodyear, and that’ll be the tire that the drivers use in the future. It’s a fascinating idea that’s just crazy enough to work.
“I have a solution that I think could fix it. NASCAR has their own Next Gen car. It’s one that they originally started with. Right? You need to get NASCAR and their team. This should not fall on the teams to pay for fixing this. Get NASCAR’s car. Get Dale Jr. And get him to go to Richmond. Get him to go to Martinsville. And test tires. He gets to pick out the tire that we run,” Hamlin stated. “It’d be great publicity. This is Dale Jr.’s tire. Let’s see how it does. I think he would sign up in two seconds, to go out there. Because he’s angry about the tire as much as I am. He brings it up just as much as I do.
“But we clearly are missing the mark. Goodyear is missing the mark. We clearly know that having a tire that falls off — we’ve seen it. Bristol gave us the evidence that says, ‘This is better.’ Now, did it need to go to that extreme? No. But we damn sure shouldn’t have a car leaving the race with 180 laps on his left side tires. That is ridiculous.”
That would certainly be a spectacle that would get some more eyes on the short-track package. Imagine Barry Bonds picking out the new bat for the MLB, or Tom Brady choosing the next NFL football. It makes some sense.
Regardless, Hamlin believes Goodyear could create a formidable tire. They have the technology, it’s just a matter of leaving their comfort zone.
“Yes, they do,” Hamlin responded, asked if Goodyear had the ability to make the tire. “Because we know they have the ability, because they have a wet weather tire that is phenomenal. That does wear out.
“If we ran that wet weather tire on dry, which we did at North Wilkesboro. I watched the lap times, I was sitting in my during — we had heats right in North Wilkesboro. I was watching, with the track, when it dried out and we had the weather tires. The lap times were, everyone’s running the same, because they had a lot of grip, and then all of a sudden the disparity in time between fast cars, slow cars was huge, and we had a crazy amount of passing going on. And then we put on the slicks, and it was over. We had single file racing from there on out. So we know that they have the chemical recipe to build us a soft tire. It’s in the wet weather tire. You have got to soften this tire up dramatically. Way out of your comfort zone.”
It remains to be seen whether Denny Hamlin’s masterplan involving Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes true, but it’s one that could certainly have some legs in the future.
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