Denny Hamlin: NASCAR had a tough call whether or not to throw caution flag during GEICO 500 finish

Denny Hamlin didn’t envy NASCAR’s responsibility regarding their decision on when to throw the caution as the field raced back to the line at Talladega.

As Michael McDowell led the field to the start-finish-line, he blocked one too many times, and ended up causing a gigantic wreck at the end of the race. NASCAR allowed the leaders to race back to the line, while the yellow was thrown once Tyler Reddick secured the win.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin elaborated on his thoughts regarding NASCAR’s decision, and it’s evident he has some strong thoughts on the subject as a whole.

“I mean, I don’t know. I mean, there was some pretty junked up stuff,” Hamlin said, regarding NASCAR’s lack of throwing the yellow immediately. “The only thing I don’t like about it, was that it promotes, it really kind of promotes the drivers to just hold the throttle wide open and pray. You know what I mean? You know, it’s usually, it’s like, ‘Hey, if you see cars crashing, just stop,’ you know. Just slow down, because there’s a caution coming, and you’re locked in your spot anyway. But when there is no caution, you know, what NASCAR does is they look at the the photo, and they look at the video of everyone who’s crashing, and they start marking all these cars that are in, they consider in the crash. Well, if you can pass them while they’re crashing, they give you that extra spot.

“So some of these crashes that happen back in the back of the pack was from drivers saying, ‘F— it, I’m holding wide open until they throw caution, and if I destroy my car, then so be it.'”

Regardless, Hamlin recognizes that the field was right near the line, so he didn’t have a problem with NASCAR waiting a bit to throw the caution, as they certainly would rather see it play out when racing for the win.

“Yeah, it was, right? I think that you know, they held it off at least till the actual line. So yeah, maybe was it 300 yards, 200 yards, late? From a safety perspective? Yes. But you know, I don’t know,” Hamlin added. “We did have one car on its side. Others had pretty hard hits. But man, I don’t know. That’s a tough, tough call for them to have to do. You know, they want to try to let it play out anytime they can. That’s for sure.”

At the least, Denny Hamlin recognizes NASCAR had a tough call, but we think most fans would agree they played it right at the end of the Talladega race over the weekend.