Denny Hamlin addresses ‘Cowboys’ radio miscommunication at Texas

Denny Hamlin lost valuable track position after the Lap 21 caution during Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. Hamlin was the only car to stay out as the field came down pit road, before eventually coming before the race restarted.

But by then, the damage was done. Hamlin was now running outside the top 20. He explained on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that there was a miscommunication between he and his team on whether or not they were coming down pit road. Hamlin heard the call “Cowboys,” and thought it was an order to stay out.

“It was a simple miscommunication, and it compounded on our end,” Hamlin said. “So, I knew that we were less than potentially 10 laps short. When we started the stage, we were gonna be 10 from making it all the way. And so, I’m looking at it and I knew the pace was slower. … We had a caution and so, all those things I’m thinking, ‘Maybe we can make it on fuel. I think it’s just track position is the reason I’m running slow is because Josh Berry is in front of me and he’s running slow. And he’s running slow because Kyle Larson is running slow.’ It was just an accordion. … I was hearing multiple people key up at the same time.

“… What happens is it all scrambles when it gets to me and in Turns 3 and 4. I’m waiting on the call of what are we doing and we have codes. At the time, both of them [spotter and crew chief] are trying to tell me and nobody’s telling me because they’re both telling me at the same time. So, it scrambles the radio. I get on the radio like, ‘One person, just tell me what the call is.’ And they say, ‘Cowboys.’ I look up at my codes and OK, I look back down and I stay out. And he was like, ‘We got to pit.’ I look back up and I’m like, ‘We can’t have one of our code words be one of the code words of another code.’ … We just get so cute at times.”

Denny Hamlin’s early exit at Texas

Unfortunately for Hamlin, the issues did not end there. Hamlin’s engine blew up on Lap 75, prematurely ending his race. Perhaps it was a little karma for throwing the Horns Down gesture at the crowd in attendance during driver introductions.

Hamlin finished P38 at Texas, his second consecutive finish outside the top 20. That’s proved costly in the regular season points championship race, as Hamlin is now 83 points back of William Byron.

“It was blowing up for about a lap or so before it really detonated,” Hamlin said. “I tried to keep it off to keep it from full detonating. That was [so] they can diagnose exactly what happened to it. It’s tough to say exactly what it is, but they’ll go back and look at it and we’ll find out in a few weeks.”