Michael McDowell recognizes Denny Hamlin started early at Richmond on the final restart, but he believes the No. 11 wheelman wasn’t alone.
Speaking with RACER’s Kelly Crandall, McDowell emphasized the fact that Kyle Larson and Joey Logano also moved early behind Hamlin, putting an emphasis on the fact that the No. 5 and the No. 22 should be receiving a similar backlash as the No. 11 is at the moment.
“What I can’t understand is why y’all aren’t talking about Larson and Logano, they should have been penalized for laying back. Clear as day,” McDowell said. “They were both a car length back; both of them should have been penalized. There’s no question about that one.”
Aside from calling out the misconception, McDowell provided some interesting insight into the rule, and whether NASCAR can truly change it moving forward.
“I listened a little bit to different podcasts and Race Hub and social media, and I think for the fans it’s probably a bit confusing because there is a hard line (on the racetrack). For me, it wasn’t,” McDowell added. “I think if you’re the leader, you should have the advantage under every circumstance. There should never be a situation where the leader doesn’t have the advantage on a restart.
“Do we need to change the line, the box, the rules, all these things? I don’t know. I just don’t want to take away the leader’s opportunity to win the race by putting so many parameters around everything.”
Alas, it’ll be interesting to see where NASCAR goes from here, but it looks like Michael McDowell is on Denny Hamlin’s side when it comes to the ordeal that transpired at the end of the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.
Kevin Harvick: Denny Hamlin dared NASCAR to penalize him, got away with it
Kevin Harvick watched Denny Hamlin’s controversial restart live from the booth during FOX’s coverage of last weekend’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.
While he didn’t believe Hamlin’s jump of the restart was super blatant at the time, his opinion has changed a bit. During the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour, the former NASCAR champion believes Hamlin dared NASCAR to penalize him, and they decided against it, leading to a win for the No. 11.
“When we first showed the replay at the end of the race, everything happened, and it was hard to tell who went where. We showed the replay, and I said, ‘It definitely looked like he rolled before the line.’ Well, when you go back today, he definitely went way before the line, and he took off,” Harvick explained. “So I think from a driver’s perspective, and everything that you do, you know at the end of the race that they aren’t going to, it’s going to have to be pretty blatant, for them to call that restart violation.
“As a driver, you know you want to go as early in the process as possible to take off, so that you get the advantage on the outside guy. You don’t want to wait in the box. You want to go at the very beginning of the box, to be able to take off. So Denny, you know, he took off early. Got away with it. Won the race.”
Of course, there’s two sides to every coin, and it was Martin Truex Jr. who was bitten by Hamlin’s decision on the restart. Regardless, Hamlin was the victor, and he has the win moving forward in 2024.
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