Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick assess impact of Nashville rain delay on the cars

Last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, the weather played a small part. Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick discussed how much of a role it played. Before we go any further this week, let’s look back on that rain delay and the impact it had on the NASCAR Cup Series last weekend.

There were a few drivers who found themselves with a vastly different car before and after the rain delay. The biggest example of this was Bubba Wallace. During the opening half of the race, Wallace passed 14 cars and was one of the biggest movers on the day.

Then, after the rain delay, Wallace and his 23 machine went back, back, back to the rear. A smart strategy play and overtime attrition netted them a top-10 finish at the end of the night.

Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin talked about the delay on Actions Detrimental this week.

“I pretty much noticed zero difference in his car capability from the time he [Christopher Bell] put on the right side tires to the time he back to four tires a little bit later in the race,” Reddick explained.

“Yeah, actually I looked at his lap times during that, during the rain delay,” Hamlin interjected. “You know, he was running three sub-30.50 laps in a row and it was the same as what it was on four tires. We took four, Chris came to me right when that rain came, I got out of the car and he greeted me right as soon as I got out he’s like, ‘I screwed up, I was so worried about your battery voltage, I just fumbled the ball here. But thanks for a good restart, you got us back in the game, we’re back now P6.’ He’s like, ‘We’re fine. We’re going to win this race, we just execute this correctly, we’re going to be fine.’

“It was an interesting situation because the field kind of split there. I took four, a few other people took four as well but the bulk of the cars up front took two. That definitely was the right call but it shuffled the field at least during that point. Certainly when the rain came and then everyone has got their stuff cooled off, it reset everything. Because usually the falloff that we do see in these tires is through heat. So, any time you can cool them all the way back off they’re usually going to fire right away.”

Denny Hamlin had a chance to win the Ally 400. It was not the rain that took that chance away. In the end, it was the five overtimes that ruined the day for the 11 team. As for Reddick, he let one slip away.

Tyler Reddick was in position to win late. All of the other major contenders in the race had wrecked or were forced to pit for fuel. However, Reddick was unable to beat Logano on the final restart. Another one lost to bad luck and timing.

Will the weather play a role this week in Chicago?