On the recent episode of Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin opened up on his take on racecars flipping in NASCAR. After Corey LaJoie suffered a flip at Michigan, drivers like Michael McDowell and Josh Berry also experienced flips at Daytona, with the one Berry had being a major one.
LaJoie's flip saw NASCAR add a 'shark fin' feature to the Next Gen to prevent it from flipping. But the two incidents during the Coke Zero Sugar 400 once again raised concerns about the Next Gen's ability to keep itself on the ground in the case of a wreck.
However, Denny Hamlin believes there's no reason to worry. He opened his take by acknowledging that while no one likes to see flipping racecars, he still doesn't have a big problem with it when it happens.
"I don't have a giant issue with it because there just haven't been many major injuries come from flipping. You're dispersing energy when you're flipping. If Josh Berry's car does not flip over he hits the inside side wall harder. Why? Because when he flips over that is essentially slowing his car down as it's turned to the side (...) he starts to flip over, his car is slowing in speed, and it just streamlines into the inside wall. Without a flip it's going faster when it hits the wall," Hamlin described. [25:00]
Denny Hamlin further claimed that when a racecar flips it helps in slowing it down. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver added that he doesn't want the racecars to be so slow that they can't flip anymore.
But Hamlin emphasized that racecars in NASCAR have been flipping "for decades", and in essence, it isn't "necessarily a totally bad thing."
Interestingly, Dale Earnhardt Jr. also had a similar take on this subject. In the aftermath of the recent race at Daytona, the NASCAR Hall of Famer responded to a fan drawing concern to the number of flips in the last two races.
Junior simply wrote in response:
"Don't know that you'll ever rid that particular element of danger."
Denny Hamlin claims the Next Gen cars are safe after Corey LaJoie wreck
Following Corey LaJoie's flip at Michigan, Denny Hamlin stated that he has full faith in the safety of the Next Gen car. He claimed that the current generation of the NASCAR Cup cars are "pretty safe" in a roll-over scenario.
Hamlin backed up his claim by pointing to the visible impact the Ryan Preece wreck from Daytona had where he was left with bloody eyes, but with LaJoie, that wasn't the case.
"Certainly feel like we have a pretty safe car. I feel comfortable with the speeds that we’re at," Hamlin added.
The veteran claimed that when the cars turn sideways, because of the pan under the bottom of the car which is shaped like a wedge, the air pushes it right over the top. This leads to the car flipping into the air.
As for how NASCAR could stop it, Denny Hamlin was clueless.