RIDGEWAY, Va. — On lap 334 of the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday (March 29), Denny Hamlin squeezed Ryan Blaney into the wall.
“Yeah, he just put me in the fence,” Blaney said. “That’s what it looked like from my seat, and if that’s the way it looked like on TV, then that’s what happened.”
The two multi-time Martinsville winners were battling for third at the time, and it seemed like whoever got out of the battle ahead would be able to track down leader Chase Elliott for the lead and win. But that didn’t happen.
Chase Elliott Wins Cook Out 400 at Martinsville
“From my seat, I feel like it’s unnecessary,” Blaney said. “I don’t feel like I kind of got pinched. I feel like I just got driven into the fence, but I think everyone’s gonna have differing opinions on it. Obviously, in my seat, it seemed like it was overkill, but I don’t know. I’m sure he doesn’t think the same.”
Blaney noted that it was the first time he had raced around Hamlin all day, so to ask Hamlin if there was anything prior leading up to that incident. But Hamlin agreed that the contact was unnecessary and also explained how it wasn’t on purpose.
“Yeah, I had lost control off of turn 4, spun the rears and just got higher than I wanted to be,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin had led 292 laps at that point and had been the dominant car of the day. Blaney had only led for two circuits but had run inside of the top five and ahead of Elliott for much of the day.
But after the contact, neither multi-time Martinsville winner could get up to Elliott, who won on Sunday. Hamlin got up to second and to within a few tenths of a second of Elliott for the lead, but he didn’t have the dominant speed he had before. Hamlin finished runner-up, just over half a second behind the No. 9. Meanwhile, Blaney went backward, falling outside the top five and finishing in sixth.
For Blaney, it was clear the damage messed up his speed.
“I don’t know if it knocked the toe out a little bit,” Blaney said. “I was pretty tight after that, but luckily, we were able to kind of get one or two spots back after that happened.
For Hamlin, it’s not as clear, as there were multiple factors plaguing him over the final run. There was the dirty air and Elliott controlling the pace, as Hamlin had been out front and controlling the pace for the entire race leading up to Elliott getting the lead. There was, of course, the contact with Blaney. But Hamlin’s Crew Chief Chris Gayle told Frontstretch that it was most likely a loose left-rear wheel.
“It wasn’t terribly loose, but it was probably loose enough that he felt it,” Gayle told Frontstretch. “So we trust his gut on that. That’s what it was.”
Hamlin was complaining during the final run that the rear end felt like it was moving around when he was braking.
“Yeah, it just felt different in the rear that run,” Hamlin said. “So we’ll check it out, but no excuses. We just got beat.”
The 292 laps led was the fourth most Hamlin has ever led in his career. Coincidentally, in the three races where he led more laps than that, he’s only won one of them.
Still, he won the first two stages and scored the most points on the day with 56. He is now third in points, 94 points behind leader Tyler Reddick.
While Blaney didn’t initially have the speed on the day to contend up front, he felt the adjustments his No. 12 team made throughout the day finally got him there.
“I thought so,” Blaney said when asked if he had something he could win with. “We were getting a little bit better each run, so that was positive. I felt like I got like two spots better each run. I could kind of hang on a little bit longer and find rear drive.
“And honestly, without the yellow during this cycle, I felt really good, like kind of biding our time. I was kind of closing in. I don’t know how it would have played out, but, yeah, I was proud. We got better all day. I thought at the start of the race, we were about an eighth-place car, and at the end, we were a first- or second-place car.”
He also came away with a solid points day, scoring his fifth top 10 in the opening seven races. It was also Blaney’s 15th straight top 11 at Martinsville. He sits in between Reddick and Hamlin in points, in second, 82 points out of the lead.
What a waste of words about something that caused neither driver any positions. Why not talk about Bubba Wallace losing his mind and dropping to 11th in the point standings due to a tantrum. When will people realize how immature this driver truly is?