Denny Hamlin wins Sprint All-Star Race
Denny Hamlin FedExed Joe Gibbs Racing its first Sprint All-Star Race victory Saturday night.
Hamlin drove off pit road first and maintained the lead throughout the final 10-lap segment of the race and won the exhibition event at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the first time.
The final segment was precipitated by a mandatory four-tire pit stop for the entire field. The order entering pit road for the stop was determined by the average finish order of the drivers in the previous four 25-lap segments.
Hamlin entered pit road with the sixth-best average finish (helped by a two-tire pit stop earlier in the race), but he had the last pit stall on pit road thanks to winning the pole earlier in the evening. He beat the entire field off pit road, and held off Kevin Harvick in the race’s final laps.
Harvick might have had a faster car in the final segment and was stalking Hamlin over the last laps. While Hamlin ran the low line in the corners for much of the waning laps, Harvick was in the middle lane, creeping ever-so-slowly to Hamlin’s back bumper. But with three laps to go, Hamlin moved up to the middle line in turns one and two and blunted Harvick’s momentum. He lost a bunch of ground to Hamlin and was never able to make it back up thanks to the clean air Hamlin’s car was enjoying.
Outside of Harvick, Brad Keselowski could have been Hamlin’s biggest competitor. He exited pit road right behind Hamlin in second, but in doing so, sped on pit road. The speeding penalty meant he had to restart at the back of the pack, ending his chances for a win.
Quite frankly, the events described in the last two paragraphs above were the most dramatic things about the race, unless you want to count Jamie McMurray’s save on a restart earlier in the race (Had McMurray not kept his car pointed straight after getting bumped by Joey Logano, half the field would have crashed). Because of the current rules package in the Sprint Cup Series and how it translates to intermediate tracks like CMS, the race wasn’t incredibly thrilling.
The most entertaining moments, like McMurray’s save came immediately after restarts. Like with many Sprint Cup points races, after the field got strung out a few laps after the waving of the green flag, the drama ratcheted down considerably.
And the lack of entertainment throughout the race is a big reason why the All-Star Race needs to be reformatted and/or moved to a different track in 2016. Because it’s not for points, it thrives on memorable moments. It hasn’t had them recently.
A short track like Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond or a track where the Cup Series currently doesn’t race at would stand a much better chance of producing a memorable moment. Hell, a road course even would.
While Hamlin sure isn’t complaining about what happened Saturday night, you can bet a vast majority of fans’ excitement levels are far, far below his. If NASCAR wants to keep its All-Star Race relevant, it needs to change it up. The sanctioning body has shown that it’s clearly willing to tinker with the structure of its championship at the sake of drama. It needs to apply that same aggressiveness to its All-Star Race immediately.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
