Welcome to this week’s edition of Monday Morning Pit Box! Here, we view the race from a crew chief’s perspective and break down the calls that had a major impact on the event. (Occasionally, we go inside the booth and look at decisions NASCAR officials did or did not make from race control).
This week, the NASCAR Cup Series circus visited Texas Motor Speedway for the first race inside the playoffs Round of 12. Tire failures, vibrations and suspension issues lurked around every corner, a chaotic 500 miles that ended with Tyler Reddick claiming his third win of the season.
Behind Reddick’s win, his first at Texas, came a pivotal call from race control that affected the outcome for two championship contenders.
Lap 269: Denny Hamlin hits William Byron from behind under caution, no penalty
We’ll start out of order, midway through the final stage. As the caution came out for Martin Truex Jr.’s spin on the frontstretch, Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota spun around off the front end of William Byron’s Chevrolet.
The Byron/Hamlin altercation stemmed from an incident a few laps earlier where the duo were battling for second. As they came off turn 2, onto the backstretch, Hamlin appeared to push Byron up into the backstretch wall. Frustrated, Byron wound up retaliating although the driver admitted to Frontstretch after the race he didn’t mean to spin Hamlin out.
Hamlin wasn’t done with Byron just yet, as he hit the No. 24 of Byron from behind during the caution period, attempting to take his second-place spot in the running order back. But NASCAR would have none of it, instead sending Hamlin back to 20th for not maintaining speed under yellow.
Atop the Hamlin pit box, crew chief Chris Gabehart was furious Byron didn’t get penalized for what appeared to be obvious retaliation. “This man wrecks you under caution and he gets no penalty?” Gabehart said. “What are we doing?”
Hamlin agreed, claiming after the race he got “tight off of turn 2 with Byron and never made contact.” He vented frustration and worried about the precedent this situation set without any type of penalty.
Both drivers bounced back for a decent recovery. Byron wound up seventh at the checkered flag while Hamlin was 10th.
However, this incident could have been handled so much differently by…
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