Denny Hamlin reacts to Ryan Blaney repair controversy at Watkins Glen
Ryan Blaney was irate with NASCAR after the sanctioning body parked him for the remainder of Sunday’s Round of 16 race at Watkins Glen following his involvement in the Lap 1 caution.
Blaney’s No. 12 Ford had a steering issue, making it impossible for him to drive himself back to his pit stall. As a result, NASCAR determined that his race was over under the guidelines set forth in the Damaged Vehicle Policy adopted in 2017. Denny Hamlin, discussing Blaney’s gripe during Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, said that rules are rules, and explained why there shouldn’t be an uproar to change the policy because of this circumstance.
“I mean, they went by the rules,” Hamlin said. “I’m not saying he’s wrong and NASCAR’s right, I’m just saying they went by the rules. Are the rules fair in that instance? I’m not sure. What they’re trying to avoid is that we were spending as race teams lots of money on crash carts, repair parts. We would have to take these things to the track. And it would have to have essentially a full body components of all the car. And have to bring them to the racetrack. I know they brought up that it’s kind of unsafe, that’s whatever.
Denny Hamlin weighs in on Ryan Blaney repair issue at Watkins Glen
“This was a cost-cutting measure as to not have to force us to have to go repair the car. And then send it back out on the racetrack. It can cause a caution from debris or whatever it might be. So, it was one of the cost-cutting things that got brought on years ago. By the rule, it’s the right thing. I mean, should we kneejerk reaction just change it because there’s an uproar? Absolutely not.”
Hamlin added that as a result of the steering issue caused by the contact with Brad Keselowski coming out of the bus stop, it was clear a repair would exceed the 10-minute limit under the policy.
“This is a unique situation, and I don’t think they would have gotten it fixed anyway. It seemed like this was a steering issue. And for them to fix this thing, it would have [taken] more [time] than the repair clock because he was in the incident. There was contact. So, it didn’t matter and that matters,” Hamlin said. “Had he had something go wrong and they could have fixed it in two minutes, and he’d be back in the race, then there’s more of a legit argument. But the damage he did incur was race ending.”
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Blaney entered the day 33 points above the cutline, but hardly got the chance to pad his cushion. He instead dropped points, now 29 points clear going into Bristol this Saturday. While he likely wouldn’t have entered contention with the repairs, he still wanted to get some laps in.
Brad Moran, Cup Series managing director, explained why the sanctioning body determined that Blaney was done for the day during a Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Moran said the decision to park Blaney was consistent under the policy.
“If you are in an incident and you are on the DVP [damaged vehicle policy] and you cannot drive the vehicle back to your pit stall, then you are out of the race at that point,” Moran said. “If you drive it into the garage or behind the wall, at that point you’re out of the race. And you have to go to the care center. So, it’s a variety of reasons or efficiencies or safety. But all the industry in collaboration put this together in 2017.
“It was very unfortunate. I totally get Blaney’s frustration. But he was involved with the incident with the 6 [Keselowski]. Which did end up busting the front suspension or steering I believe it was at the end of it all. And that would be consistent with what we’ve been doing since 2017.”