{"id":635528,"date":"2026-04-29T03:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635528\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T03:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:29:10","slug":"denny-hamlin-pleads-with-nascar-to-make-major-change-to-cup-series-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635528\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin pleads with NASCAR to make major change to Cup Series cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

After another superspeedway race that was viewed as only mildly compelling by many fans, Denny Hamlin hammered down on the problem with superspeedway racing<\/a>. It mainly boiled down to the sheer amount of drag on the current Cup Series cars.<\/p>\n

That amount of drag makes it hard to do anything but race in a 2\u00d72 set of lines at a place like Talladega. It\u2019s hard to pull out of line and attempt to make a pass.<\/p>\n

So drivers end up competing instead by fuel saving or trying to make up valuable track position by minimizing time on pit road. Cycle out toward the front late in the race and you\u2019re unlikely to give up that ground unless you crash.<\/p>\n

But after bemoaning the state of superspeedway racing, Denny Hamlin turned toward the fix. And he provided an immediate solution for NASCAR<\/a>. It isn\u2019t changing the stage lengths but rather a tweak to the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate them trying to change it, though. No, it did not work, but they tried,\u201d Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental<\/a> podcast. \u201cAnd I hope next time they try something different. My first recommendation is please cut the spoiler off this car. Please. Do whatever it takes. If we\u2019ve got to run 210 (miles per hour), we\u2019ll run 210. It\u2019s fine. Just please get some drag out of this car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin explained how that would instantly fix a lot of problems. He continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got hundreds of counts more than our Gen 6 car, hundreds of counts more drag,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you let us pull out of line and know that we can come out of our pit stop in 10th and still have a chance to win because we\u2019re going to pull out of line and make runs and sh*t, we won\u2019t care about the fuel savings. I promise you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would make for much more compelling racing for fans. As it stands, things are often quite status quo at the end of superspeedway races. Only a handful of drivers toward the front have a shot.<\/p>\n

That harshly penalizes any mistakes, as Hamlin\u2019s costly speeding penalty showed<\/a> on Sunday. It also makes for a so-so viewing experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf NASCAR said, \u2018You know what, we agree.\u2019 First, it\u2019s going to take them to agree,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cAgree that we want to see somebody, we want to see Dale Earnhardt being able to go from 17th to first in eight laps. That would never exist today. They would have to agree that they want to do something about it. Then they would have to go to the stakeholders, and the No. 1 primary stakeholders that would have issue with this would be the engine-builders, because they would have to go to them and say, \u2018We need to cut the horsepower down.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the reason the manufacturers would have an issue with that is that they\u2019ve spent lots and lots of money developing their superspeedway engines at these horsepowers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pull the spoiler off and the speeds will increase. Denny Hamlin did admit there\u2019s a danger there.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they\u2019re more apt to lift off, which that\u2019s not good for anyone,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone wants that. So you\u2019ve got to make some engine compromises with the drag that comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can NASCAR tweak the car such that superspeedway racing is a bit more compelling? It\u2019s likely going to try in January at the Preseason Thunder tests. Hamlin summed up the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re running hundreds more horsepower, it feels like,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe 150, I don\u2019t know, than what they used to. The cars go slower today but have more horsepower than they\u2019ve had on superspeedways (in the past). It\u2019s just because the drag and this way these cars are designed. This car is not designed to be superspeedway racing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After another superspeedway race that was viewed as only mildly compelling by many fans, Denny Hamlin hammered down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-635528","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\/635528","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=635528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}