Denny Hamlin was the car to beat last night at Gateway International Raceway, which is just outside of St. Loius, Mo., but unfortunately for Hamlin, it didn’t end as well as he had planned. Due to a miscalculation by his crew chief and a bit of overzealous driving by two competitors he actaully crossed the start/finish line in 3rd place.
After leading the majority of the laps in Busch Silver Celebration 250, a late green flag pitstop and the decision by his crew chief to only take on fuel left Hamlin in a very precarious situation; a sitting duck. This is because Carl Edwards, the eventual race winner took on two tires and fuel on his green flag pitstop and he was gaining fast on Hamlin. It only took Edwards a few laps to get close enough to Hamlin to get by him and with only 9 laps to go that is exactly what he did.
I am sure finishing second wouldn’t have been so bad for Hamlin, but what really upset him was the way Edwards was racing him before the green flag pitstop that eventually lost the race for him. You see Carl Edwards has away been an impatient driver ever since he broke into the Nextel Cup Series and he isn’t one to backoff on the track even if it means getting into the back of a fellow driver. On one specific occassion, Edwards had a run on him going into the corner and because Edwards wasn’t about to back out of the throttle since he had a run on Hamlin he tapped Hamlins bumper, causing the car to get a bit squirrelly and because Hamlin was still in his way, Edwards hits him harder and pushes Hamlin out of his way. This type of racing is becoming much more common in the all of the NASCAR elite racing series; Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck.
Many drivers and their fans are usually quick to bring up Dale Earnhardt Sr. when they are discussing this type of driving known as "the bump and run" and that is because Dale Earnhardt Sr. was the king of the bump and run. This is where he got the nickname the Intimidator and he earned that nickname in just about every race.
Hopefully, Denny Hamlin now realizes that he needs to be aware that he is never safe on the race unless he has a 4 second lead coming to the checkered flag. Becuase he will always need to watch his back bumper when he has certain drivers coming up on him in the closing laps of any race. He learned that lesson well last night, because not only did Edwards pull the bump and run on him to eventually win the race, but Clint Bowyer pulled the bumpand run to take second place on the final lap and Hamlin ended up in 3rd place. This obviously upset Hamlin quite a bit, because he requested a few minutes to cool down before his on camera interview which is customary after all races. The network usually talks to drivers that finished in the Top 10 and unfortunately the race went over the scheduled time because of the rain delay, so Hamlin never got his on camera interview. But I am sure he had some very colorful things to say about Carl and Clint in the post race media center. The trouble is, what happened to Hamlin is happening all too frequently and many drivers are so concerned with winning for their sponsors and the point standings that it leads to that type of driving and one of these days someone is going to get killed on the race track and then it will be too late for NASCAR to fix the problem.
NASCAR needs to crackdown even more than they already have been doing this season, several top name drivers have been penalized for what NASCAR calls aggressive driving, but that usually only refers to a driver that retaliates after something they didn’t like on the track; like last weekend at Pocono when Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards were blackflagged and held a lap on pit road for intentionally bumping the car in front of them after being hit during the same incident on the track. Tony Stewart was squeezed up the track and into the outside wall by Clint Bowyer and Tony didn’t like it and he turned right into the side of Bowyer causing him to spinout Carl Edwards. NASCAR held Tony for lap for aggressive driving and shortly after that, Carl Edwards got his revenge on Tony Stewart spinning him out as they were entering pitroad. NASCAR reviewed the tape and they penalized Edwards for aggressive driving. Tony Stewart recovered from the penalty to finish in the Top 10, but Edwards wasn’t so lucky.
Now we have to wonder how long it will take for Hamlin to retaliate against Edwards and Bowyer, since the Nextel Cup Series doesn’t race today, he will have to wait until next weekend when the Busch Series races again.
