While many tuned into Denny Hamlin’s podcast this week to hear his thoughts about the on-track incident between himself and Chase Elliott, there was a nugget that stuck out before he even got into it.
Hamlin was discussing Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 and mentioned that from what he’s heard, the NASCAR Cup Series may be returning to the oval at IMS – which would potentially mean the return of a crown jewel race in the Brickyard 400.
“I’m looking forward to going back there – I’m hearing – next year, on the oval,” Hamlin said near the end of the segment.
Hamlin has been no stranger to making the show impactful in the sport – including potentially influencing NASCAR to handing him a penalty for an earlier incident this year.
He is a known advocate, both on this episode and elsewhere, for the series to return to the oval in Indianapolis.
“I’ve been a huge advocate of putting these NextGen cars back on the oval at the Brickyard,” Hamlin said. “It’s so much more prestigious. The Indy road course is not a marquee event. (If) you put us back on the oval, it is a marquee event.”
Hamlin did say that NASCAR should adjust the cars as well, but the biggest story will be the return to oval racing at the track, should it happen.
“The NextGen car has so much drag down the straightaway, so it’s so slow by itself, that the slingshot passes would be huge. As long as you slow our cars up, just a little bit in the corners, to make it where the wake isn’t terrible – you would have fantastic racing.”
ARD will have more on the situation as information becomes available.
The full episode of Actions Detrimental can be heard here.
