"We just get log-jammed": Denny Hamlin uses Xfinity Series example to shed light on Next Gen's superspeedway problem

Denny Hamlin recently commented on how the Cup race at Daytona evolved after the big wreck in stage 1. During the wreck in the first stage of the race, many drivers, including some playoff hopefuls like Alex Bowman and Kyle Busch, saw their race end prematurely.

But losing a lot of cars in the race was what Denny Hamlin argued made for the exciting finish in the end. Most notably, Ryan Blaney went from 18th to 1st in a span of 8 laps while other drivers also had their sniff of the lead in that time.

Hamlin believed the field thinning out led to better racing as he drew a comparison between the Next Gen car and those in the Xfinity Series.

"There was more room to move. Blaney coming from 12th in the final couple laps, he had room to navigate. That's what's so great about the Xfinity cars and the Xfinity package is, if you look, there's space between the cars. They're not right on each other all the way around the racetrack where a lot of times the Next Gen, we just get log jammed in this two or three wide racing. It looks good, but you can't really go anywhere. But at the end of the race, there was enough chaos up front, enough air moving around where it created some good passing and it looked like a very entertaining race from my seat," Denny Hamlin explained. [4:30]

But in the race, Hamlin himself got caught in one of the wrecks, which led to him expressing his frustrations on his podcast. Talking about his strategy at Atlanta last season in the playoffs, Denny Hamlin said he chose to lay back because he was expecting a big wreck, as he's been in every superspeedway wreck in the Next Gen era.

The JGR veteran said it drives him crazy as he went through a decade where he ran up front in the Gen 6 car, made moves, while the wrecks happened behind him, 'where the dummies are.'

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Denny Hamlin comments on the main issue with the Next Gen car

Former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty had recently defended the Next Gen car against the criticism, claiming the car has produced some exciting finishes. This was a stand on which Denny Hamlin also agreed, as he claimed that the current car is 'not a stock car.'

He said that the days of bringing a car from the street and turning it into a racecar 'have obviously been gone for decades.'

Having said that, Denny Hamlin claimed that the issue is how at the beginning of the Next Gen era, there was a lot of disparity between fast and slow cars. But over time, with development, and nothing changing, the field has 'tightened up.'

"You can see it from the fastest to the slowest. The first time here in the Next Gen was on average lap time seven tenths or something in that range, and last time we came here, it was three and a half. The field is just now running the same speed," he claimed. (via Motorsport)

That, according to Denny Hamlin, is the fundamental part of the problem for NASCAR, which he claimed would be 'tough' to overcome.