{"id":510616,"date":"2026-03-03T01:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/510616\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T01:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:57:11","slug":"denny-hamlin-reacts-to-texas-heat-taking-toll-on-nascar-field-at-cota-cool-suit-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/510616\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin reacts to Texas heat taking toll on NASCAR field at COTA, cool suit problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR<\/a> had multiple issues with driver cool suits failing on Sunday at COTA, leading to some scary health issues. AJ Allmendinger, for one, had to be placed in a supine position on the track as medical personnel tended to him after the race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not everyone wears the cool suit, nor are there always problems with it. But when it does go out, it can be a real nightmare for drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed like there was some cool shirt issues, and that\u2019s definitely the downside to it is that if it does not work it is worse than not having it at all,\u201d Denny Hamlin explained on the Actions Detrimental<\/a> podcast. \u201cI think the car heat soaks. That\u2019s what I think is causing these things to go bad, is that they\u2019re going out when temperatures are up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin explained what he thought was happening with the cool suits. Essentially, once the cars slow down from top speed there isn\u2019t as much air flow through the system.<\/p>\n

That can result in overheating that then overwhelms the mechanism. He broke it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the car goes to caution, all the heat gets trapped inside because you\u2019re not cutting through the air,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cYou\u2019re not having the air push that hot air.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like having a fan on an ice cube. You\u2019re driving, it\u2019s blowing and that gives your cool air. Well once you go caution, your car stops going fast, you shut the fan off. Then you don\u2019t have that cube pushing air onto you anymore. In the hot sense, right, the car just gets really, really hot during cautions. And I think that\u2019s when these cool units are failing. They\u2019re getting overheated and tripping, and that\u2019s when they\u2019re out for the count.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin doesn\u2019t use a cool suit himself. So it wasn\u2019t really an issue for him on Sunday. But he can empathize with the drivers who do have one go out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it makes a lot of guys feel certainly better and what not,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve just, my body\u2019s just gotten used to it from doing this for so long that just the heat doesn\u2019t really bother me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for potential solutions to the cool suit issue, Hamlin mostly came up empty. Part of the problem is NASCAR is very particular about air flow issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that NASCAR\u2019s very, very strict with these teams on restricting airflow to the drivers and their cool units. \u2026 All I know is that NASCAR really frowns upon diverting any air that should be going to the driver.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR had multiple issues with driver cool suits failing on Sunday at COTA, leading to some scary health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-510616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}