NASCAR insiders react to Denny Hamlin's pit road problems at Kansas

Denny Hamlin had major pit road issues during the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Kansas, and two insiders have a lot to say about it. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic reacted to Hamlin’s pit crew struggling during Sunday’s race.

“Absolutely disastrous day,” Gluck said. “Is he below the cut line? No, he’s plus-11. But going into Talladega, going into the ROVAL, certainly two races where anything could happen, you probably don’t feel super great about that if you are Denny Hamlin.”

Bianchi said that Hamlin scored the fewest points on Superspeedways this season, meaning the upcoming Talladega race could be a problem for him. “I looked at this race in Kansas as not a must-win but a must-perform,” he said about Hamlin. “You go there, you got to get stage points, you gotta leave there with a really good finish. Get as much as you can get because you don’t know if these next two weeks are going got be like.

More on Denny Hamlin’s pit road problems

“…This is the epitome of a missed opportunity on a track where you are the active wins leader, where you lead everybody in top-five finishes, where you are going to be one of the two or three guys everybody looks at as the guy to beat. Certainly had a car that was capable of that today, and you don’t do that. You don’t win, you don’t get a great finish, you don’t get any stage points.”

Hamlin finished eighth on Sunday but believes the struggles on pit road prevent him from winning. “They know that today was one of their worst days ever,” Hamlin said. “They’ll just go work to clean it up.”

Due to the issues on pit road, Hamlin was in the back of the back, which made it challenging to work his way towards the front. “I don’t know, I’ve had some pretty bad days, but just yeah, horrible day,” Hamlin added. “Came out 15th, 20th, then we had a loose wheel. Just terrible. Terrible day.”

He continued: “We had the fastest car, but every time we get to the top three the caution comes out and we restart 15th, 20th. Can’t show how fast your car is when you’re back of the pack. All you can do is just keep making positions back up to the front over and over and over and eventually you just run out of laps and someone else wins.”