Denny Hamlin teases The Clash moving to Daytona to address fuel-saving concerns

Following another running of the Daytona 500, questions remain about the proliferation of fuel-saving on superspeedways with the Next Gen cars. And Denny Hamlin had an eyebrow-raising comment after the race about the potential future for the preseason Clash.

Could it be coming to Daytona in the near future? Hamlin noted that’s one idea being kicked around to see if a fix for fuel saving can be found.

“One of the suggestions is, you know, that we talked about just a few days ago is come here next year in The Clash,” Hamlin said in a video shared by Steven Taranto. “Let a few of us come up with a package that we think (works). You won’t see many fuel-saving, you’re just going to see people hanging on. That would be the only fix.”

Right now, the primary issue when it comes to fuel saving is that the Next Gen car has too much drag on superspeedways. It makes passing very difficult, because any driver getting out of line immediately loses momentum.

Thus, drivers try to find their edge in a different way. Rather than passing on the track, they try to pass by getting an edge on pit road.

Fuel saving can mean less time spent on pit road, so many drivers operate less than full throttle on superspeedways during key junctures of the race. NASCAR riled folks up when it said recently that simply making tweaks may not fix anything.

So Hamlin opened up on a potential solution for NASCAR using The Clash as a testing ground. If The Clash moved to Daytona, officials can see what works.

“There’s a way. But we’re going to have to increase the speeds by a lot,” Hamlin said. “You’re going to have to make it to where handling matters. That’s going to spread the field. That’s going to make it to where we’re not, you know, it’ll look a little more like racing from the past.

“But as long as their insurance company’s OK with it, you’re going to have to speed up the cars. Because right now we’re so planted in the racetrack that we can just run in this really tight pack.”

Could The Clash be headed to Daytona? That would certainly catch the interest of fans everywhere. So Hamlin’s comments are thoroughly intriguing.