Denny Hamlin and his team made the decision to pit ahead of the final overtime restart in this past Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway.
Hamlin, who sat P4 at the time, was hoping for more cars to go with him, but that didn’t happen. He was the lone driver among the leaders to pit, taking four tires. Unfortunately for Hamlin, that was game, set match. He finished P11 as a result.
Kevin Harvick, who called the race for FOX Sports, said on his “Happy Hour” podcast Tuesday that though the decision didn’t work out, they were in a position to “just say screw it” and roll the dice.
“Martinville, look — it’s a racetrack where you have to evolve with the racetrack, and you have to make the right calls on your car and adjustments and things throughout the day,” Harvick said. “But they’re another team that was in position to just say screw it, we’re gonna pit and hopefully we’re the first car to pit and we come out fifth or fourth or whatever pit cycle was. Well, a whole bunch of them stayed out and they didn’t have a chance. But they’re in a position where [crew chief] Chris Gabehart can make that call and be able to say OK, let’s just see what happens here.
“But early in the race, that car was really good on the long runs and the last two runs of the race, they just weren’t as good on the long run as they had been at the beginning of the day.”
Denny Hamlin explains strategy ahead of overtime restart
Hamlin led 66 laps and won Stage 1, his second stage victory of the season. As for his team’s strategy to pit ahead of the overtime restart, they determined that he wasn’t going to win if they restarted fourth on old tires.
“We were just trying to make a call there to drag some others down with us. But with the tire wear not being much of anything it’s probably a stretch to think others were gonna pit with us, but that was our strategy,” Hamlin said. “We knew we weren’t going to win, we were trying to do anything we could to win.
“So, Chris’s strategy is ‘We’re not going to win if we restart fourth on old tires.’ So, pit, try to drag seven, eight cars if we could possibly do that. Nobody else pitted. So, everyone else with old tires just finished up front. We did all we could, we made our call last week and great pit crew last week got us a win and this week just didn’t work out.”
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