Denny Hamlin Doubles Down on Dale Jr’s Demand for NASCAR’s $3.4 Billion Worth Partner’s Experiment in Iowa

P24 finisher Denny Hamlin faced bad luck for the second consecutive week at Iowa’s Cup Series debut due to issues out of his immediate control. About a month from his runners-up placement at North Wilkesboro’s All-Star race at the season’s last outing on a short track, Joe Gibbs’ veteran #11 rolled off the grid in P12. Corded tires in the first stage and a collision with Kyle Larson in the last may not have left Hamlin feeling too, having lost twelve track positions when the 2024 Iowa Corn 350 finally waved for green.

As has been for the past couple of years, Denny brushed off his disappointments to discuss the flavor-of-the-weekend in his post-race release of Actions Detrimental. From Ryan Blaney becoming Iowa’s first-ever champion out of the premier division to NBC’s return as NASCAR’s broadcast partners for the rest of the season, many developments emerged through an almost predictable 2024 weekend.

Nevertheless, Denny shined the light upon a glaring issue that requires a little extra consideration – Goodyear’s recurring 2024 tire mystery on yet again, a short track. And it seems the Chesterfield native is siding with one Dale Earnhardt Jr to make the demands for improvement from NASCAR’s multi-billion-dollar tire supplier.

Denny Hamlin joins Dale Jr’s call for Goodyear change

Goodyear brought the same “prime” tire setups from the All-Star race in June to Iowa this weekend. Although the race saw the lead change 17 times over 350 circuits, the tire gremlins were prevalent again on a repaved racetrack that many speculated would birth single-lane short-track racing with no visible fix. For reference, one can look back to Denny Hamlin’s triumph at Bristol’s return to concrete which witnessed the lead change a record-breaking 54 times across only about one-third of the field in a race largely marred by unnatural tire fall-off. Even the All-Star race saw Joey Logano dominate the whole event leading all laps but one to win a million dollars in North Wilkesboro.

Dale Jr was a little distressed by the sub-par racing experience of this particular event as it took place on the track he had worked so hard on to get up and running, and back as part of the NASCAR schedule. Following these mysterious events on another repaved racetrack in Wilkes County, many believed the Goodyears were the problem and not the racetracks, Dale Jr had urged NASCAR’s slicks suppliers to “push the tire and get more aggressive with the tire. Because I don’t think the tracks are broken…” His primary demand, however, was softer tires.

It is safe to say, that Goodyear and short tracks with new pavements have not yet been able to meet the perfect standards. Only this past Friday, for what could be deemed the third time, at repaved 0.875-mile Iowa, five drivers faced tire issues during the 50-minute practice session. Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, and Ross Chastain were the three involved with minor consequences, JGR’s Christopher Bell and Team Penske’s Austin Cindric would be relegated to start from the back of the pack following right-front blowouts that resulted in their respective vehicles accumulating damage through contact with the wall.

On race day 10 incidents plagued the Iowa Corn 350 with half of those problems courtesy of failures on the Goodyear radials. Hamlin’s podcast co-host Jared Allen certainly noticed the discrepancies as he asked Hamlin: “We saw a handful of blown tires in practice and then you saw a handful of tire wear, blown tires in the race. What was your assessment of this and how that went?” Offering his expert assessment, the #11 driver painted quite the contrary narrative, “I thought it was better than what it was in practice. I mean, we saw it was around lap 20 or 25 in practice, guys were blowing out tires. And I do think that teams made adjustments as well, to help with that.”

To compare, Denny then talked about the Xfinity race’s return to Iowa which faced some scrutiny online as it registered 12 DNFs for the first time in the 2024 NXS season. “Our problems were different than the Xfinity cars. They had a heat problem. So just a lot of heat, so they were blistering quite bad… There’s no way for the heat to escape the tires. You’re on a surface. It is pretty flat so the tire is always making contact with the asphalt. So it’s just creating a ton of heat and a lot of friction. And then in the Cup cars, it was more of a shoulder issue – air pressure, cambers, things like that. Ours was definitely a different problem than Xfinity. So I wasn’t too concerned going into our race…” – confessed Hamlin.

He explained how “cambers” referred to the implemented adjustments to the ’tilt’ of the wheels which helped the car “corner better” on certain setups. Finally, Allen would ask Denny if he ‘would tell Goodyear to go softer.’ He echoed the demands of ‘softer tires’ like his Dirty Mo Media Network colleague and owner did after North Wilkesboro to answer, “I think on the left. Yes. I think the left-side tire still has some room for the compound itself to be softer. That would allow more tire falloff because the times still, flatlined really for all 90 laps. They didn’t gain speed or lose speed. They just stayed the same. It certainly could cause some tires to wear out if you put a softer left-side. And as the racetrack starts to wear out as well, it should allow you to run a softer compound.”

As Denny shelled his answer to Jared Allen, he also fell 38 points behind the current table leader Chase Elliott due to his 24th-place finish at Iowa. On the other hand, the #11 did manage to pick up some much-needed playoff points by finishing 6th in the second stage. As it happened, another Hendrick driver finished on the podium as runners-up, William Byron. However, the real story for Denny Hamlin heading out of the week has been his unruly contact with Byron and Elliott’s teammate, Kyle Larson at the beginning of Stage 3.

Denny takes the blame for Kyle Larson’s misery

After winning the pole and leading around 90 laps, Larson was edged on the lead for good by eventual winner Ryan Blaney on the 88th rotation of the circuit. He even won Stage 2 and finished behind Stage 1 winner Blaney, who consequently led a race-high 201 laps. But the incident involving Denny Hamlin & Daniel Suarez on the backstretch made it hard for the #5 to recover its early pace and it eventually finished dead last among all running cars in the field at P34. Hamlin took full “responsibility” for Larson’s heartbreak admitting to Bob Pockrass post-race, “It was my mistake, I gassed up too soon and ran into the back of him…”

Although initially frustrated over the radio by getting spun by the car he had lapped earlier in the race, Larson would later talk to Pockrass about the issue and told him, “I doubt it was intentional; I wouldn’t see why it would be intentional.” With all the dust now settling at Iowa, the NASCAR season moves to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a track slightly above just a mile. Denny’s teammate Martin Truex Jr is the defending champ at Loudon, but the air suggests a new winner to emerge at the USA Today 301 on June 23rd.