In The Last Great Colosseum, Denny Hamlin was the only gladiator still standing in the end. At least, he was the first across the finish line. In a race where only five drivers completed all 500 laps, NASCAR took a step back in time at Bristol.
Even though it was an accident, Goodyear did something special on Sunday. It is hard to pinpoint the main reason why the tires shredded as they did and couldn’t lay rubber into the track. The resin instead of PJ1 on the bottom groove, the overcast and cool weather, or was Denny Hamlin right? Did someone “pee-pee” in the rubber mixture?
Whatever the reason was, the Food City 500 ended up being one of the best short track races in years. Teams were caught off guard and had to learn on the fly. It was a great display of crew chiefs, pit crews, and drivers all working together.
Denny Hamlin doesn’t want Goodyear to freak out about it. The tire manufacturer went into PR mode in the middle of the race on Sunday, but they didn’t need to.
“Don’t overreact,” Hamlin said in the post-race press conference.
“When he [crew chief Chris Gabehart] talks about what to learn, certainly there’s something that was different, whether it be the resin or the tire or something that was different from the last time we raced here. I think the resin was supposed to be different.
“Whatever happened in the mixture department maybe at Goodyear, that’s something certainly that could be used, maybe not to that extent, but it could be used. I think they have to figure out what in their process changed from this batch of tires versus last, just cut it back a little bit.”
Denny Hamlin wins over Martin Truex Jr. in tire battle
Sunday at Bristol was one of the most bizarre and spontaneous instances in NASCAR in recent memory. You just don’t get surprises like this in racing anymore, if you ever did before. Unprecedented is the word I would use for the Food City 500.
Joe Gibbs Racing at one point late in the race was running 1-2-3-4 and looked dominant. With the last cycle of green flag stops, things were jumbled up, and only a handful of drivers came out on the lead lap, Hamlin among them.
The veterans rose to the top, drivers who have experience in late models races on short tracks, saving tires, and managing equipment. It is no shock that Martin Truex Jr. was right there chasing Hamlin down at the end of this race.
The Food City 500 broke the record for most lead changes in a short track race at 54. If you didn’t enjoy that race, then I’m not sure what to tell you. Put your favorite driver’s performance aside and just judge it for what it was – a battle of driver and crew chief skill and not an aero battle to the end.
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