NASCAR driver Tyler Reddick found himself involved in a jaw-dropping car flip during the Las Vegas Cup Series Playoff race. This incident has sparked comments from Denny Hamlin voicing his disapproval of Reddick’s aggressive driving leading up to the incident. Hamlin, talking on the “Actions Detrimental” podcast, didn’t shy away from critiquing Reddick’s racing tactics.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is known to be a challenging circuit. The crash took place after the second restart, surrounded by tightly packed cars and high pressure.
Denny Hamlin called out Reddick for what he viewed as reckless aggression. As a driver with numerous accolades, including three Daytona 500 victories, Hamlin’s comments have plenty of credibility within the community.
“A rule of thumb I found is that if you want to make a move three-wide high, you need to get established three-wide probably at least by three-quarters of the way through the corner,” he stated.
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“We’ve already started gassing up halfway through the corner or probably at the 40 percent mark of the corner, we’re already accelerating. To ask us to change direction that late in the corner, there’s just no opportunity to do that.”
Reddick, meanwhile, defended his aggressive racing style, admitting to the challenges associated with overtaking cars on a mile-and-a-half track. As cars often become closely packed during these moments, timely and decisive actions are crucial.
The driver found himself squeezed between Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Elliott, leading to the dramatic flip that forced him and Brad Keselowski out of the race. Reddick admitted that his decision-making could have been more forward-thinking.
“You have to be aggressive on the restart,” he said. “It is hard to pass after a while. By the time I realized I was in trouble, the 19 (Truex) started sliding and the 9 (Elliott) was coming up, and I was pretty much already on their outside at that point, with nowhere to really go.
“I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding to be more conservative to avoid an incident — just not who I am, but it is unfortunate. It took us out of the race.”
Hamlin also commented on the makeup of tracks used for the NASCAR calendar, focussing specifically on the grass on the frontstretch:
“It’s unfortunate, and certainly we don’t have really any kind of standard of consistency when it comes to the grass and the infield and what we have on mile and a halves,” he said.
“I just wish we had something more consistency or some sort of here’s the standard in which we want the infields. I certainly think the grass was low.
“We have some tracks where it’s definitely higher. Michigan was one where you go through the grass there, you’re going to just destroy and it definitely can grab the car. Charlette’s the best by far.
“They’ve got AstroTurf there. It’s the smoothest, you can run through it, it’s the easiest to maintain but it’s the most expensive to initially put in there. Certainly, the grass was a destroyer of cars and certainly caused this one to flip.
“If we’re so hellbent on these cars not flipping, because we think that’s a problem, what are they going to do about Las Vegas? If the other issues were a car problem, this is a track problem. So are we going to fix the track problem?”
The upcoming races will be critical for Reddick.
“We had a really, really fast Jordan Brand Toyota Camry, probably would have been in the mix all race long, but we will go to Homestead — a place where I have had to get it done before — and go for it there.”
