Denny Hamlin reacts to wild Zane Smith flip, wreck at Kansas

During the Kansas playoff race, Zane Smith had a good day on the track, but was derailed by a wreck. Denny Hamlin didn’t even see it. After looking back on the NASCAR weekend, Hamlin now has an understanding of how the flip happened.

Zane Smith was having another strong showing. He spent most of the day in the top-15 and was even in the top-10 at some point. Contact from John Hunter Nemechek put the 38 car in the wall. Soon, it was on its side and sliding down the SAFER barrier wall.

This isn’t something that happens often in NASCAR. But it isn’t hard to understand how a car gets on its side like Smith did. Denny Hamlin talked about it on his Actions Detrimental podcast this week.

“That was wild. I had no idea,” Hamlin said. ‘I had no idea that someone got turned over. Yeah, it looked like John Hunter tried to go to the middle there, got up the race track into Zane. Just one of those weird bank angle type of things.

“Probably the right front tire catches the bottom of that SAFER barrier just enough to ramp up and just ride. Like, who was that 38 car? Well, I think Martin Truex [Jr.] had that happen at Richmond once. Then maybe it was Kasey Kahne in the old 38 car, Braun [Racing] car way back in the day?”

There was a similar incident last year at Watkins Glen. William Byron was involved in that wreck along with Brad Keselowski. In that wreck, Byron’s tire rode up the 6 car of Keselowski instead of the wall.

Denny Hamlin lost Kansas race when Zane Smith flipped

For Denny Hamlin, the Zane Smith wreck is the caution that ended his run for the win. You can point to the last lap and how he went up the track instead of holding the bottom. But if Smith doesn’t get wrecked, this race likely ends in regulation, and Hamlin holds on with the power steering issue.

The Kansas race got wild in the closing laps. It all started with the flip from Smith, really. Had Nemechek stuck his line and didn’t get up the track, maybe the race would have played out differently. Instead, Toyota coughed up the lead on the last lap in overtime and gave the race away to Chase Elliott.

Denny Hamlin is +48 points to the cutline going into the Roval. He will likely advance to the Round of with relative ease. Even if he runs in the 20s he will have a great cushion to the cutline. So, he didn’t get the win last week, but he did put himself in position to advance on points. That’s what it takes to get through the playoffs more times than not.