Denny Hamlin throws Kevin Harvick under the bus for demanding NASCAR rule change
Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin differ on the stage break rule.
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Denny Hamlin (Credits: Sportscasting) and Kevin Harvick (Credits: Sportscasting)
Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin had a unique take on 2014 NASCAR Cup champion Kevin Harvick’s demands about throwing out the stage cautions. Some see it as a gimmick and manufacturing the race. While fans rallied around the Stewart Haas Racing driver, Hamlin claimed that Harvick had got it wrong.
Many argue that artificial cautions kills the flow of racing and gives driver who started the race poorly an unfair advantage. But the lack of breaks isn’t yielding entertaining races as well. The last two road courses had long green flag runs without caution, and if not for the storylines around playoff, those races, in terms of entertainment, would have been a big wreck.
Hamlin, while taking in his Action Detrimental podcast, pointed out that he hates to call out Kevin Harvick’s demands but said the demand for throwing out cautions isn’t the best thing. He pointed out that the teams are not planning for many natural cautions with the Next-Gen cars, which won’t affect the team’s strategy, just as it is now with stage breaks.
“I think that the stage caution thing — I hate to throw him under the bus in his final year, but this came from Kevin Harvick, saying we have to throw out the cautions. He got it going in the media, and then the people on social media took over and were saying he’s right,” Hamlin said (H&T: Yardbreaker)
“So what Kevin was saying is we got to get rid of the stage cautions because everyone’s strategy is the same now. Well, I can assure they’re all the same now because we’re just going to run our car out of gas and run it from the back because we’re not planning for many cautions anymore,” he added.
In case you missed it: Xfinity driver Riley Herbst set to drive for Front Row Motorsports in the regular season Cup finale at Daytona
What is Kevin Harvick’s advice on fixing the stage break issue?
Harvick, who is set to retire at the end of the 2023 season, in July last season said that the stage breaks should not have a caution. Instead, they should be free-flowing, with the drivers being awarded points according to their position in the designated lap.
“In my opinion, there should be no stage breaks. I think the stages should be rolling laps, and when the stage ends, the stage ends, and you score points on that lap. But I think that the stages, and all the extra cautions, they just take away from the race,” Harvick said.
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Justin P Joy
(4970 Articles Published)