After setting the fastest time early in practice, things went very wrong for Denny Hamlin. The car fired off into Turn 3 as a high rate of speed, spinning sideways and backing into the outside wall.
"Stuck throttle! F****** stuck throttle!" exclaimed Hamlin the radio. There was significant damage to the rear clip of the car. Hamlin drove the wounded No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back to the garage. As he climbed from the car, he slammed his helmet down on the roof in frustration.
The cause? A chunk of rubber get lodged in the throttle body, according to Hamlin. After narrowly missing out on the win at Homestead, Hamlin enters Martinsville 18 points below the cut-line. It would have been difficult, but he could have pointed his way in with the benefit of stages, but that path is likely gone now. Unless something surprising happens to the Hendrick Motorsports drivers in front of him, a win may be necessary on Sunday.
He will not take part in qualifying and will start from the rear of the field. And Martinsville is a track where passing is difficult and those in the back are lapped rather quickly, so this really puts him behind for Sunday. The team checked the measurements and then made the decision to make repairs to the primary car, bringing out the crash cart from the JGR hauler.
"The car was phenomenal," said Hamlin when asked about the moments leading up to the crash. "It was doing everything it needed to do. We had just made a change and then went back out to assess the change and thought it was right where it needed to be."
Hamlin was the first driver to miss out on the final four in both 2022 and 2023. He is the winningest driver in NASCAR Cup Series history without a championship as well. It's a glass ceiling he simply cannot seem to brea and a myriad of issues have plagued him throughout the playoffs this year.
Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick are the two drivers locked into the title-decider at Phoenix with Christopher Bell +29 points and William Byron +7 points on the cut-line.
