Denny Hamlin: NASCAR immediately switching to wet weather tires at New Hampshire would have been 'risky'

It looked as if NASCAR had a window to get some laps in on the Goodyear wet weather tires when rain initially began to fall at New Hampshire Motor Speedway during Sunday’s USA TODAY 301.

Instead, NASCAR brought the field down pit road and put the race under a red flag in anticipation of more severe weather coming through. It would be two hours and 15 minutes before the field got back to racing at New Hampshire.

Denny Hamlin, speaking on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast, lauded NASCAR for not putting the cars immediately back on the track, saying it would have been extremely risky to do so.

“Well, could you of? Yes. Would it had been risky? Extremely yes, because we knew that heavy rain was coming,” Hamlin said. “When we pulled on pit road and we stopped in our pit stalls, there were big drops coming down. We’ve already said that we don’t have windshield wipers, OK that’s fine. But we can’t race during heavy rain and so, we’ve seen that isn’t good and visibility, we didn’t have any mud flaps on the cars, so we don’t have anything to help with spray, so I think generally speaking they made the right call to let’s just let this rain pass and then go after it after that.”

Despite knowing that the weather would be an issue, NASCAR did not make it mandatory for the cars to have windshield wipers or mud flaps on them at New Hampshire. Asked why that was, Hamlin said it’s because “we still don’t want to race in the rain.”

He added that while it was the right time when they got back to racing, it was “treacherous” for the first 5-6 laps.

Denny Hamlin: New Hampshire was ‘treacherous’ on wet weather tires

“Because we still don’t want to race in the rain,” Hamlin said. “While they’re called wet weather tires, they’re more damp condition tires, which is not as sexy as a name. The wet weathers — I’m telling you, it would be too dangerous to run that track. Before we started the race I mean, we had two cars spin out under caution before we even went. I just think that when we went, it was probably the right time. But it was treacherous I’m telling you for 5-6 laps before the car has got enough heat in the track to start to create dry spots.”

Fortunately for everyone involved, NASCAR did bring the wet weather tires to New Hampshire. If they didn’t, the race would have been called with 82 laps to go.

“Oh, we would’ve,” Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said. “We would’ve been done with 82 laps to go. Again, it gave us an opportunity to get back green. We knew we were up against it, with daylight as well. But kudos to our teams, our drivers, our owners and especially Mr. [Jim] France, for his vision.”