Denny Hamlin admits surprise to NASCAR calling Coca-Cola 600, sides with fans

Denny Hamlin expected to be back on the track and continue the Coca-Cola 600 after NASCAR suspended the race due to weather. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin said he was surprised to see NASCAR call the race with 151 laps reamining. He was under the impression that the track was close to being dry and was preparing to finsh the race.

“I’m probably not a fan of racing a three in the morning, but you had so many people there,” Hamlin said. “You had a soldout crowd. You just had an hour and a half of drying, so it’s not like you had to start from scratch. It was there. One more quick pass around and I felt confident from the track cameras that I saw, I felt like it was pretty close to getting us out there.

“…I thought in my mind from what I saw that by 12:00 we would be racing. That might have been wrong, it could have been plus-minus 15 minutes…At 12:15 the track was dry.” Hamlin added that if that happened, the Coca-Cola 600 would have been done by 2:00 or 2:15 in the morning. And while that’s late, Hamlin mentioned that F1 started a race in Las Vegas at 1 a.m. ET.

Denny Hamlin says fans wanted the Coca-Cola 600 to conitnue because of Kyle Larson

Hamlin admitted that TV likely played a role in NASCAR calling the race. “TV has such a big influrence on what you see every week,” Hamlin said. “TV is the control arm that does it all. I don’t know how much of a role they had in it.

Another aspect of NASCAR calling the Coca-Cola 600 is Kyle Larson who was looking to compete after racing the Indy 500 earlier in the day. “I think people wanted to watch Kyle Larson get in the Cup car and make a run at it,” Hamlin said when talking about the fans. “I think they traveled all the way to Charlotte to see the Coke 600 and they didn’t get to see the full thing.”

With the race being called early, Christopher Bell was declared the winner. Bell now has two Cup Series race wins this season and eight overall. Hamlin finished the Coca-Cola 600 at P5, and with Larson not competing in the race, Hamlin is now on top of the Cup Series standings.

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