Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, who spoke on Actions Detrimental, discussed how NASCAR’s new damaged vehicle policy (DVP) impacted the finish of Sunday’s race at Darlington. Hamlin, who won at Darlington on Sunday, benefitted from the late race caution between the damaged vehicle of Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace with four laps remaining.
“It won’t be the last either,” Hamlin said. “Certainly, as long as guys are able to repair wrecked race cars now.”
Larson, at the time of the incident, was 160 laps down when he and the No. 23 of Wallace made contact.
Hamlin specified that Larson’s spin did not have an impact on the new DVP and praised the No. 5 team. “You got to give the No. 5 team credit,” Hamlin said. “They worked really hard to get that car back on the race track and for multiple reasons,”
Hamlin worries about the potential for a repair to fall off and bring out the yellow flag. “In the future, what will happen is you’ll go to repair something,” Hamlin said. “And it’ll cause a caution and is that the game-changing caution of the race or not?”
The new DVP rule allows teams to be towed and make repairs without the seven-minute timer from previous seasons.
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