"That's going to be the key" - Denny Hamlin singles out important aspect of a good Watkins Glen result

Denny Hamlin recently shared his take on the upcoming road course race Watkins Glen. Hamlin, who is in need of a solid result in the upcoming playoff races at the Glen and Bristol, spoke about the key aspect of getting a good result at the Glen and whether it's tougher in that aspect than other road courses.

During the latest episode of Actions Detrimental, Hamlin's co-host Jared Allen mentioned his statistics at Watkins Glen. Allen said between 2010 to 2016, the 43-year-old couldn't get a single top 25 finish at the Glen, but from 2016 to present, he has finished outside of the top 5 on only two occassions.

Hamlin, who was unaware of this aspect, said:

"It's one of my favorite road courses. It's got a handful of passing zones. Qualifying is really, really important there. I can't emphasize how important qualifying is, because the speeds that we run, aerodynamics meaning so much, and really the one lane track that it is, it's just, you gotta qualify well. That's going to be the key." [42:15]

After Denny Hamlin's response and emphasis on the importance of qualifying well on the road course, Jared Allen asked whether it's tougher to qualify on road courses.

Hamlin said it is tougher but in the case of Watkins Glen, because of the tires they had earlier, there wasn't a detriment to running multiple times.

"This will be the X-Factor, with this new tire, if it does wear as quick as they're talking about, you're going to have one shot at it. Because if you have to go and re-run again, the lap time will likely is just going to be just so far off. I remember last year, the more times that you ran in on the tires, the more cycles you put on it. It just kept getting faster. But this one doesn't sound like it's going to be like that," he added.

When Denny Hamlin called out NASCAR's over indlugence in road courses

After NASCAR released the schedule for the 2023 season in 2022, Denny Hamlin singled out the abundance of road course style racetracks on the Xfinity Series schedule. The veteran claimed that NASCAR, as a sport, is historically built on oval-track and short-track racetracks.

Hamlin said he loves NASCAR taking the Cup Series schedule back to historic tracks like North Wlikesboro, or taking on bold bets in Chicago. But still, he felt there was a need to "start tapering off" some road courses from the schedule.

"While I love to see where we’re going with our schedule on the Cup side, going back to the old historic tracks, especially with the All-Star race, I definitely — and this is just my opinion — think we have to start tapering off some of these road courses that we’re running," Denny Hamlin said (as per Charlotte Observer).

“I hate to say it, but that’s just kind of how it’s been: The good racing is on the ovals, and that’s what we are. We are not IMSA. Not many people tune in to watch IMSA races. So we have to be good at what we’re good at. And we’re good at short-track, big-track, contact-able racing," he added.

Denny Hamlin emphasized that NASCAR must stay true to it's identity and not venture away from who they are and what their roots are.