Defending race winner Denny Hamlin wheel-hops his way into wall
Five-time Martinsville Speedway Denny Hamlin saw his chances of winning the STP 500 end prematurely with a hard crash on Lap 221.
Hamlin was wheeling his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota into Turn 1 when it unexpectedly began wheel-hopping. Hamlin tried to turn, but pancaked the right side of the car against the outside wall between Turns 1 and 2.
The hard impact forced Hamlin to the garage to try and make repairs to his damaged car.
“It’s my first time ever doing it here, so it’s a little embarrassing, but I mean we were the fastest car those last 30 laps and we got back to the top-five and I was making up a lot of my speed on entry," said Hamlin. "As the tires wear, the rears get hotter, less grip, you can’t brake at the same amount and I just -- it was really out of the blue.
"I didn’t ever have a hint of it up until that moment, so a bit of a rookie move on my part -- been around here too much to do something like that, but learning for the fall and I’m really encouraged about how good our car came up through the pack and I really thought we had a car that could win.”
All told, it was not a good day for Hamlin, who came into the day as one of the pre-race favorites after winning at the short track in this race last spring.
Oh what a humbling sport @NASCAR is. Feel really bad for my @FedEx team. Hopefully one of the @JoeGibbsRacing cars can bring it home
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) April 3, 2016
On the first caution flag period on Lap 94, both Hamlin and Brad Keselowski and Denny got caught speeding on pit road, which dropped them both deep in the field.
