“Have a clear understanding”: Denny Hamlin’s crew chief makes eye-opening remark about NASCAR’s ‘intent’ amid ‘loosening’ DVP

Denny Hamlin's crew chief Chris Gabehart recently spoke about NASCAR's revised Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP). NASCAR recently had a meeting with the teams about the same and according to Gabehart, the officials wanted the teams to understand how the DVP will work with just five races to go.

Last week's 28-car mayhem at the Talladega Superspeedway resulted in several cars, including eight playoff contestants getting towed back to their respective pit stalls. Other than seven of them, everyone was allowed to get their cars repaired under the red flag and ultimately, finish the race.

As per the DVP, if a car gets a flat tire due to a contact and can't move, they are out of the race. A car can be towed back to the pit stall and be allowed to re-enter the race with fresh tires only if it's "a spin without a contact." However, NASCAR seems to have loosened up its rules a bit at this point in the season.

"They (NASCAR) want to make sure that all competitors moving forward for the remainder of the year have a clear understanding of what their intent is and their intent is not to put anybody out of the race that doesn't need to be," Gabehart explained. "They wanna put more in our hands." (0:44)

"They wanna put it back in the teams and give them an opportunity to go out and compete again. I don't want to speak entirely for them on the specifics; I'm sure they'll do that in the coming days but the gist of it is... it sounds like they are gonna loosen up the reins a little bit with five (races) to go," he added. (1:33)

Meanwhile, NASCAR prepares for next week's race, also the last race of the Round of 12, at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Fans can watch the event on NBC (October 13, 2 PM ET onwards) or listen to live radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

"Why can’t we have a clear policy"- NASCAR insider opens up about double standard on DVP

NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck shared his take on the way the body has been working the DVP out in recent weeks. In a recent episode of The Teardown, the veteran analyst demanded some kind of consistency on NASCAR's part.

Stewart-Haas Racing driver Josh Berry's car was towed away after minimal damage from a lap 1 crash at Kansas a few weeks back. Before that, reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney's No. 12 Team Penske Mustang faced the same outcome following another lap 1 incident at Watkins Glen, even though the team felt the damages were repairable.

However, at Talladega, drivers like Harrison Burton, Chase Briscoe, and Chase Elliott, who were involved in the multi-car incident, got to finish the race.

"When you say last week and you have made it very clear, Blaney’s thing and this thing with Berry, if you can’t drive it back, you’re out," Gluck said. "And then they like go to great huge thing of pulling Briscoe out of the grass, pulling Chase [Elliott], and Harrison Burton by the way, too, got towed back. Why? I don’t know, man. Why can’t we have a clear policy that doesn’t change week to week...it's just, it's not good."

With the DVP now in favor of the teams, the question is how will NASCAR determine which car to keep and which car to let go after an on-track incident?