Crew chief Chris Gabehart explains what happened with Denny Hamlin at Homestead

As Denny Hamlin was racing side-by-side with Ryan Blaney, proving to be a thorn in his side, he stopped turning and went into the wall. At first, it looked like the NASCAR driver cut a tire down. Then, it was clear that his tires were all up. Hamlin reported an issue with the steering.

Well, thanks to Crew Chief Chris Gabehart we now know what happened. Regardless of how you think Denny Hamlin was racing Blaney, it wasn’t caused by contact or any of that. This was a failure of the power steering that coincided with a downshift into the turn.

According to Gabehart, via Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports, Hamlin was put in a tough spot. During his downshift, there was a power steering failure. This caused the wheel to rip out of Hamlin’s hand, making his car go up the track and into the wall. There was a spike in the RPMs and that can put a lot of stress on the system.

To me, from my limited mechanical knowledge, it sounds like he downshifted, the car didn’t like those extra RPMs and that caused the issue.

What happened to Hamlin at Homestead? Crew chief Chris Gabehart says what appeared to happen was during downshift, an odd instantaneous power steering failure occurred & ripped wheel out of Hamlin's hand. When shifting, there's spike to RPM, which is a violent event for system.

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 26, 2023

So, now we can get back to debating whether or not Denny Hamlin was racing cleanly or not. I think in the end, both Ryan Blaney and Hamlin agree it was just racing hard for position. They just didn’t come out on top of the situation.

Blaney was raced hard, got used up a bit, and Hamlin ended his day with a DNF. We’re going to get another battle this weekend at Martinsville.

Denny Hamlin was just racing for a championship

In his career, Denny Hamlin has been in positions to make the Championship 4 on wins, points, whatever it may be. He has been around for a long time and has been in just about every position you can put yourself into.

When he got out of the infield care center last Sunday, he didn’t appear to have any hard feelings for Blaney. He didn’t seem like he expected to be called a “hack” after the race, either. But it happened.

Hamlin addressed it on his podcast.

“That’s two people racing, by the way, for the final four of a championship battle. It’s just interesting to me, given who is involved, people are like, ‘Why are you racing Blaney so hard?’ What are you talking about? I’m trying to make it into the Final Four. Like, I don’t quite get it.”

With a little more thought on the matter, Ryan Blaney walked his comments back a bit. This seemed like frustration from the start and it’s clear that’s what it was. Blaney thought he had a chance to win and Hamlin took it. Plain and simple.