How Hamlin’s car went from crashed to racing chariot in just a few hours at Martinsville

Denny Hamlinwas sitting atop the speed charts after 30 laps of the early afternoon Cup practice at Martinsville Speedway. But his day quickly went sour when a piece of rubber jammed his throttle open, and in order to scrub speed from the car, he turned the steering wheel, sending his car crashing backwards into the wall. As soon as the TV announcers saw the significant damage to the right rear, they concluded that the No. 11 crew would need to pull out a backup car. Chris Gabehart, crew chief of the No. 11, and his crew at Joe Gibbs Racing, though, had a different idea. They brought in NASCAR’s Hawk-eye Optical Scanning Station (OSS) to evaluate the damage  — helping them repair a presumed-totaled car in mere hours. 

Here’s how they did it.

1:20pm, Saturday

Joe Gibbs Racing personnel and NASCAR officials begin examining the damaged No. 11 car. Gabehart was obviously disappointed to see such a fast car in disrepair, but didn’t hesitate in working with his group to start cutting off damaged panels. It took only 15 minutes to remove the trunk lid and rear bumper, and expose the damaged rear bumper supports. Initial observations revealed that the rear bumper supports had crumpled, which meant they had done their job to not only protect the driver, but also help prevent damage to the rear clip and fuel cell.

1:50pm

Mechanics from 23XI Racing joined their Joe Gibbs Racing counterparts to disassemble the rear of the car as quickly as possible, and start preparing the car for the OSS. The OSS uses structured light scanning to measure bodywork and suspension down to a tolerance of 0.150 inches and while it is typically utilized for scrutineering purposes, NASCAR will also open it up to teams in special situations like this to see how far a car has shifted from its original measurements. Once a scan is complete, a heat map is generated comparing the bodywork to a CAD image of the car that’s stored in the system along with an alignment sheet showing measurements like camber and toe, much like you would see for a street car.

Denny Hamlin takes a look at the damage on the No. 11 while JGR and 23XI crew members continue to disassemble the car.

Photo by: Bozi Tatarevic

The opportunity to even consider these types of repairs is made possible by the modular nature of the NASCAR Next Gen car, which allows the…