The wreck on Lap 147 wasn’t the only incident in which Denny Hamlin played a prominent role. Early in the race, he blew a right front tire, and as Hamlin drove slowly down the access road to pit lane, the casing separated from the tire and rolled onto the race track.
Polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr., the race leader at the time, couldn’t avoid the tire carcass and damaged the nose and front splitter of his No. 88 Chevrolet. Led by crew chief Steve Letarte, his team spent the rest of the race trying to make the best of an unfortunately accident.
Though the handling of the car was affected adversely, Earnhardt came home 12th and solidified his sixth-place position in the series standings.
“The guys did a good job on pit road all day long working on it and trying to fix everything,” Earnhardt said after the race. “I’m not sure we got everything back where it is supposed to be, but we did well enough to get a decent finish out it – just proud of how hard the team worked.
“Did a good job for qualifying, and put a good car out there for the race. Can’t do anything about what happened out there on the race track with that casing. They worked hard on it to get it right, and get it good enough where we could run well. So, they deserve a lot of credit today.”
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