Denny Hamlin believes NASCAR purposely burned laps to set up Green White Checkered finish

Last Sunday at Texas, Denny Hamlin grew a little frustrated with NASCAR as the final caution in regulation dragged out for multiple laps. It ended up setting the field for a Green White Checkered finish to end the race. That was until the other incidents to put the race into two overtime restarts.

Denny Hamlin, until that restart with two laps to go, was up in the mix. With just two laps to pass Chase Elliott for the lead, Hamlin made an aggressive move early. It didn’t pay off and he wrecked battling for the lead.

In the end, Elliott would go on to win and break his 42-race winless streak. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin talked about NASCAR’s decision to burn laps under caution. The flag came out with about eight laps to go in regulation. So, why did they run so many caution laps for a two-lap shootout?

It’s something Hamlin believes was purposeful and also unnecessary.

“No question we burned too many laps under caution,” Denny Hamlin said to his cohost Jared Allen. “I mean, there were no safety vehicles on the track, they didn’t open pit road. I don’t know what they were doing other than just winding laps, maybe they were under commercial. But I mean, damn it. When the track is clear and you’re ready to race you put out one to go, and they didn’t do that, and this is just sour grapes speaking here. It’s just a matter of how those last… your sense of urgency changes and it all comes down to this restart. Versus, even if I don’t get him here I have another chance to get him.

“I just knew on a Green White Checkered I had no choice. We should have gone back racing with like four to go but we did not. We just ran under caution for no apparent reason. There was no reason to be running under caution unless they were, they needed, I don’t know why they would have been under commercial because they had fifteen other cautions they could have got all their commercial breaks in.”

Things were going well until they weren’t for Denny Hamlin. The good news is that he was right there at the end with a chance to win. In racing, that’s really all you can ask for. At Richmond, with a cheeky restart, Hamlin was on the winning side of things.

This time at Texas, Hamlin was on the losing end. However, I can’t help but agree with him on this point. As those caution laps ticked away, I grew frustrated watching. Offer me four laps of racing to the finish versus two laps, and I’m taking four laps every single time.