Denny Hamlin shares hilarious reaction to Phoenix pace car wreck

Denny Hamlin shared his thoughts on the pace car being involved in a wreck during the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix. On the Actions Detrimental podcast Hamlin shared his reaction to the wreck with special guest Steve Letarte.

“I think he just forgot,” Hamlin said. “I think he zoned out and was thinking it’s just another pace lap. Then he realized really quickly, ‘Oh s***, one to go!'” Hamlin added, “I’ll tell you what, that Camry is tough, though. You see he hit those barrels and it creased the bumper slightly.”

The wreck happened at the end of Stage 1 as the pace car was about to miss its pit road turn-in. It led to the pace car crossing right in front of then-race leader Chase Elliott before hitting the barrels since the car made the move too late. The race was then placed under red flag cautions as crews went to clean up the mess from the barrels.

The pace car may have been the highlight for Hamlin since he could not win a Cup Series title. The three-time Daytona 500 winner did not qualify for the Championship 4 and will have to wait another year to claim his first championship as a driver. After the Martinsville race, Hamlin reacted to falling short of being one of the four drivers competing in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race.

Denny Hamlin reacts to not qualifying for Championship 4

“Yeah I mean at that point, I was pushing every lap as hard as I could,” Denny Hamlin explained on the Actions Detrimental podcast last week. “I never took a lap off 100%. And for inside baseball, some drivers do take laps off. You know there’s times you get into long green flag runs, you’ve got no pressure in front, you can’t see the person behind you and you’re like, ‘Whew… let me just make a corner here and not white knuckle this thing around.’ I didn’t have any of those yesterday, I was trying for all I could. Trying to make lap time.

“Again, I just didn’t have the ‘it’ that I needed. I didn’t have that extra gear that I could just go to to run faster. So, at that point what I try to do is run at 99% and try to keep myself, I wanted to try to gain any spot I could. I had the damnedest time trying to get around Austin Cindric who had stayed out. … But at that point I’m just you know, trying to grind this thing out, and try to get a caution to maybe chaos and choose on a restart and I find myself with a chance.”