Denny Hamlin: NASCAR doesn't need to ban Christopher Bell double pit stop from Las Vegas

Perhaps the biggest talking point coming out of the weekend at Las Vegas in the NASCAR Cup Series was Christopher Bell’s use of a teammate’s pit box to secure a loose wheel. It saved disaster.

It didn’t ultimately prevent Bell from being penalized — he still had to go to the back of the pack for using Chase Briscoe‘s stall — but it did prevent a two-lap hold for losing a wheel on the track. And it helped avoid pit crew suspensions.

That’s a valuable trade-off. But will NASCAR outlaw the little-used move?

“It’s not like there was no penalty, right?” Denny Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “He still had to go to the back. So I agree that I wouldn’t mess with it. Let’s not create another rule in the middle of the season.”

Hamlin is against NASCAR implementing a rule that would prevent moves like Bell’s in the future. It’s a rare enough situation that it likely doesn’t warrant immediate action.

There are some concerns with leaving it unaddressed, though. What about single-car teams that wouldn’t have the chance to take advantage of the open loophole?

“Maybe you just at that point, you have an agreement with whoever owns your pit crew that you can stop in any of their stalls to get it done,” Hamlin said. “That way it wouldn’t be detriment to being a single-car team, two-car team, whatever it might be.”

Regardless, Hamlin was steadfast that no new rule needs to be implemented. He doesn’t want to see it.

“We have to be the only sport that changes this many rules in the middle of the season, right?” Hamlin said. “I just feel like we update our rules every week. Change the language, make it more vague. Like they’re starting to add ‘at NASCAR’s discretion’ to everything. Like at the end of every rule: ‘at NASCAR’s discretion.'”

Hamlin questioned whether other sports change rules mid-stream. The example of the Big Ten closing a loophole exploited by Oregon intentionally putting 12 men on the field last fall was offered.

Still, the driver of the No. 11 car wouldn’t budge. He specifically harped on the discretion part of many of NASCAR’s new rule interpretations.

“That’s probably what my beef is with it is that it just, when you say, ‘But we can use our discretion,’ then you just open yourself up to just so many inconsistencies,” Hamlin said. “And people are going to point out the inconsistencies. So I don’t know. I don’t know how we got on this subject to begin with, but it’s basically I don’t think they need to adjust any rules when it comes to this because of what they saw this weekend.”