Denny Hamlin welcomes NASCAR return to Bristol concrete

Consider Denny Hamlin one of the wheelmen who are excited for the return to Bristol’s concrete surface for this year’s spring race.

Of course, the spring race at Bristol has been contested on dirt for the last couple of seasons, while the summer night race ran on the concrete. Hamlin had mixed results with Bristol’s dirt configuration, but he’s always been one of the best when it comes to the track on it’s concrete pavement.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, the NASCAR veteran revealed his excitement for the matter, and explained why Bristol is one of the best weekends on the schedule for the sport.

“Hooray,” Hamlin stated, regarding Bristol’s return to concrete for the spring. “Yeah, looking forward to that. Obviously we had a great run last time we were there Bristol. Excited to get, you know another race on the concrete there. It’s one of the best short tracks that we go to.

“Encourage the fans. Show up. You want this Bristol concrete. We all said we wanted it. So look forward to seeing you all this week in Bristol. But yeah, we’ll see how it all turns out.”

Continuing, Hamlin provided some fascinating insight into what’s going to go into this weekend’s package for the cars, and the adjustments the No. 11 team will be making when NASCAR heads to Bristol on St. Patrick’s Day.

“This is another race on this simple diffuser. I don’t know whether we have a tire change or not. TBD on that,” Hamlin added. “I think that they were working on this bigger gauge tire at all short tracks. But you know, it’s another data point for all these teams.

“We’re gonna have to make adjustments from the setup that we had in the fall just because of the different aero changes for the car.”

Alas, Hamlin will be hoping for better luck than he’s had at times in 2024. Last weekend at Phoenix, Hamlin had one of the best cars, and was one of the only ones who could compete with race winner Christopher Bell.

Unfortunately, a spin took Hamlin out while he was battling for the lead. While he was able to make it back up for a solid finish, he certainly would’ve rather won the race, especially after qualifying on the pole to start the weekend.

Nevertheless, Denny Hamlin is one of the top choices to win this weekend, as per usual when the Cup Series comes to Bristol. We’ll see if he can get the job done at The Last Great Coliseum once again on Sunday.