Daytona 500: Denny Hamlin calls on NASCAR to address 'superspeedway issue'

Denny Hamlin believes that NASCAR has a “superspeedway issue” and is imploring the sanctioning body to fix it for the sake of his “mental and physical health.”

Hamlin, speaking on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, took issue with the racing during Sunday’s Daytona 500, in which much of the race was spent with drivers two and three-wide saving fuel.

“The cars are way too easy to drive, they have way too much grip, way too much drag and what it does is it creates a great optic on TV that these cars are two by two, three by three, but ain’t nobody passing nobody. We’re out there just riding and saving fuel throughout the greater part of the race,” Hamlin said. “But NASCAR fixed it. They did throw a nice fuel mileage caution there with about 40 to go to make sure everybody could make it.

“We definitely should address it, I’ve said on this show now for years let’s not ignore that we have a superspeedway issue. And for my mental health, for my physical health — I just want us really to address superspeedway racing.”

William Byron took the checkered flag for his second consecutive Daytona 500 victory, thanks to a multi-car wreck on the final lap of overtime. Byron, P7 at the time, made it through the carnage which included Hamlin, who was leading the race down the back straightaway. Hamlin felt Cole Custer made an overaggressive move at the wrong time, taking out the rest of the field in the process.

Denny Hamlin fed up with current state of superspeedway racing

Obviously, it’s not Byron’s fault he was in the right place at the right time. But Hamlin doesn’t like luck deciding the race winner in that situation.

“Entertainment has taken over and what does William Byron say when they ask him, ‘How did you do this?’ ‘I didn’t get wrecked.’ That’s not what you wanna hear,” Hamlin said. “You wanna hear my team brought an amazing car, we had great strategy and at the end, I made the move to win the race. Coming off Turn 4 I made the move, and I can’t believe it worked out. It’s just not fair to William, it’s not fair to the 24 team. It’s all gonna count the same to them and the record books. The record books are gonna show he went back-to-back, won the race and five, 10 years from now nobody will remember.

“… Why has it become expected that we’re all just going to take each other out? Because you won’t hear any media holding anyone accountable for making ridiculous moves. When they [drivers] say, ‘I was just going for it,’ yeah, but you made a wrong move. You went for it and took out the field. We don’t hold anyone accountable. We just chalk it up to that’s just what we expect because it happens year after year after year.

“The thing is it’s getting out of control. We keep trending in this direction, like we keep heading more and more into our winner is lucky, our champion is lucky. That is not good for being legitimate in the sports landscape.”