“Two people I love right now: My pit crew and Kyle Larson.” For Denny Hamlin, it’s all about his pit crew. And why shouldn’t he appreciate them? A pit stop that was less than 10 seconds, and it gave him the race lead? Of course, he’s thanking them. Coming into the pit from the top 3, especially after you’ve clawed your way back to the front after a pit stop is not an easy call. Why did Hamlin make that call? He knew he had a team to back him up.
“The pit crew just did an amazing job. They won it last week, they won it this week, it’s all about them,” he continued. And it wasn’t just Hamlin praising the team. Even Chris Gayle admitted it. “For those guys, man, they are just villains. They just want that moment to where they can go in there and just rip everybody’s hearts out and win the race, walk away, don’t care what anybody else thinks, unapologetic.”
Well, it turns out, what Gayle and Hamlin believe to be the driving force behind their Darlington win has bigger repercussions, and Kevin Harvick knows it.
Speaking about it on the Happy Hour podcast, Harvick explained. “And in the end it, it comes down to these scenarios a lot. And Denny’s pit crew executed again in that high-pressure situation that we saw during the day. Once again, we saw a lot of miscues on pit road. We covered it during the race. So we see the technique that those guys are using on the pit stop and like Denny said in the victory lap, getting in the pit stall down pit road, the pit crew does their job out-of-the-box off of pit road.”
Harvick‘s words make perfect sense. While Denny Hamlin’s pit crew masterfully got him serviced and back out on the track, Ryan Blaney didn’t fare so well. By the time he was serviced and sent back out, he had fallen back to the second row, losing track position on a circuit like Darlington, which eventually forced him to finish in fifth place. But what made Hamlin’s pit stop perfect?
It was the pure coordination of it all. If you go back to see how it unfolded, the jackman didn’t lose any time carrying the jack, instead choosing to swing it around his back in a manner that ensured he didn’t hit anyone else working on the car. Harvick believes this move underscores the way pit stops work in the Next-Gen era.
“And when Jamie was interviewing that group and they talked to the jackman there about that choreography and the things that he did to figure that out, he said it took them all winter. But in the pit crew’s instance, you talk about just little moments like that and picking up a couple of tenths here and there and consistently being able to do that better. In today’s day and age, being able to do something a couple tenths better is lights out and a huge advantage because the advantages are smaller than they used to be,” he explained.
With the Next-Gen cars focused on parity and equality in performance, it isn’t easy to find that one quality that makes the difference. Pit stops can be that deciding factor. And Chris Gabehart knows this well. He revealed a little while ago what he told the JGR team that has created a different beast in the garage. “I was so happy to see that group succeed. I have a ton of pride in watching them succeed without me and doing it the way they did… I constantly told all of them over the off-season, if you do it this way and if you buy into it, it will be just as strong, if not stronger because new ideas come to the table and that’s healthy.”
The effort the JGR garage puts in is clear. Whether you’re talking about Denny Hamlin’s crew servicing him in record time or quickly improvising and using Chase Briscoe’s crew for Christopher Bell’s loose tire, the team has done it all. However, that’s not all Harvick is praising!
Harvick reveals his admiration for Denny Hamlin’s work ethic
A 56-time Cup Series race winner, Denny Hamlin has seen most things in NASCAR. While he’s not won a Cup Series championship, his dedication to the sport has seen him lauded by NASCAR veterans. Just recently, Kevin Harvick joined them, praising the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. The thing to understand is that Hamlin is not just a driver. He also owns 23XI Racing, which is embroiled in a lawsuit against NASCAR.
Harvick explained, “The…thing that always amazes me with Denny is just how much he can manage. We all know about the lawsuit, we all know about 23XI, with everything that he does – to be able to add in that extra piece of having to start over with a new crew chief – that is a ton of work. For me, I was fortunate because I had Rodney, Cheddar, and all the pieces on the 4 car that were intact. To be able to maintain that system all the way to the end, those guys rode it out to the end with me… Your routine in life builds around what the requirements are of your racing schedule and the race team to prepare for the race.”
But it’s not just owning a team, it’s also about adapting to the sport and its changes. “Next-Gen brings another layer of work. There’s a lot of work because the details are so small to be able to find an advantage. And for guys like myself and Denny – to retrain yourself how to drive these cars…it just takes a lot of time. So it’ll be interesting to see if he can manage and maintain that level all season long now that they’ve got that first win.”
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