By 5 GOATs,Brian Jones
Copyright yardbarker
Two crew members of Denny Hamlin‘s No. 11 team have been suspended, which has led to Jeff Burton and two NASCAR insiders sharing their thoughts. On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Burton, Freddie Kraft, and Tommy Baldwin reacted to Hamlin losing two crew members as the Round of 12 of the NASCAR playoffs begins this weekend.
“I think it puts a little bit more pressure on them, right? The normalcy of that they have going on changes now,” Baldwin said. “I looked at the reset in points. Nobody’s safe. There’s a pile of guys within one-two points. Denny’s only 26 up. I think that was a huge turn of events for them.”
Burton mentioned one race that could hurt Hamlin’s chances reaching the Round of 8. “It’s a Roval coming up, and Denny has been vocal about… He feels like he’s better off not dedicating time to road courses, dedicating it to other things,” Burton said. “A third of this is road courses. Will that strategy work out? If you know you’re going to go to the Roval, giving up points, then you damn well better bank them in these first two races. Pit crews matter.”
Denny Hamlin will have his normal pit crew for New Hampshire race
Kraft chimed in and said, “You look at his Darlington race, I thought he was one of the best cars. He had one bad pit stop, and you never saw him again.”
On Tuesday, NASCAR announced it has suspended two members of Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 team – Austin Maloney and Joel Bouagnon – for two races, because the car lost a wheel during the Bristol race on Saturday night. On Thursday, Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports reported that Joe Gibbs Racing will defer the suspensions one week, so Hamlin will have his regular pit crew for Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at New Hampshire.
Before the suspension was announced, Hamlin talked about losing two crew members for two races. “It’s super unfortunate because we were the only guys on pit road during that time,” Hamlin said on Monday’s Actions Detrimental podcast. “There was no indication, no heads up or anything. If it was loose leading the pit stall, but I’m not sure. I don’t have an answer of how or why, but more than likely.”
