Folks, we are back at it with the parity debate in the next-gen car. Yup, if you saw the recent Darlington race, you know what we are talking about! And you have got to feel it for William Byron. First, he bagged the pole of the ‘track too tough to tame’, then led all the laps in stage 1, led all the laps in stage 2, won both stages, and it was only after 243 laps that he lost the lead. But once he lost it, he could not get it back. Rather, it was Denny Hamlin who won the race. Recently, the #11 driver has spoken about the reasons why Byron lost the race.
Look, on any given day, a P2 would be a great day on track. But not when you have broken the record for the most laps led consecutively on Darlington. The last record was Bill Elliott’s 107 laps led. In fact, Byron was only 50 laps plus 4 more of overtime short of leading all the laps in the race. The last time that happened was when Jeff Burton did it at New Hampshire in September 2000. So many what-ifs. According to Hamlin, what stopped it from becoming an even more historic day was the next-gen car.
NASCAR-friendly way of controlling next-gen cars
So, after lap 240, Tyler Reddick was four seconds behind leader William Byron in P4. And he was the first car from the top 5 to pit. And then two laps later, it was Christoher Bell in the pit, and finally, 4 laps after Reddick, it was race leader, William Byron, who pitted. This is where the #24 team made a mistake. It was a green lap pit stop, and they waited way too long on the track after Reddick went in. This resulted in Reddick and Bell coming out in front of Byron.
Had Byron pitted the next lap to Reddick, he would still have been able to lead the race. But after this pit stop blunder, Byron couldn’t catch the Reddick and Bell. And to make matters worse, he had to pass so much traffic. This is where the parity in next-gen cars bit him in the face. Them being spec cars, they are basically the same. And with tire health also almost the same between them, it becomes impossible to catch the leader. That’s why Bell couldn’t close the gap with Reddick, and neither could William Byron from P3.
And Denny Hamlin recently discussed this in his podcast ‘Actions Detrimental.‘ Hamlin believes that because of the next-gen car, the #24 had to make their pit strategy according to the cars behind them. And that’s where they failed. “Yeah, that’s the tough spot that the #24 car is in. That he has to react. He doesn’t have to, but he’s gonna lose control of the race if he doesn’t react to what other teams are doing. He’s been control of the entire race. He doesn’t wanna lose that control. And especially, it looked like at the end of stage 2, when he caught the back of the pack that he had a really difficult time passing them.”
According to Denny Hamlin, the Byron faction pitting later than Reddick was thinking of making the positions later with fresher tires. But on a track like Darlington, track position was crucial, and that’s why they lost. “It was probably one lap too late. But at that time, they are probably thinking, ‘Hey, with a couple laps fresher tires, I should be able to overtake these guys.’ And we are gonna see this at all the tracks. Because we are not into our 4 year with next-gen,” he said. This couldn’t be any truer. A fresher set of tires could have kept Byron in the lead, but rules are rules, and they are uniform. Then, the #11 driver shared some golden words of wisdom.
“Again, the field’s just getting closer. Because there’s no tricks or gadgets that we can have on our race cars. So people will figure out how to set them up. All the small things that a crew chief was able to do, you can’t really do anymore,” Hamlin said, emphasizing how controlling the limited things in your hand can alter race outcomes. But what Denny is also trying to say is that parity is killing the game and that it’s going to keep getting worse!
“So it just migrated us all to the same. And as drivers we can see what each other’s doing. So that’s the same. And this is just something that we fight going forward and it’s gonna get worse, it’s not gonna get better. Its just gonna continue to get tighter and tighter,” Denny said. This was also a concern last season. It became impossible to pass cars on short tracks. We had drivers demand an increase in horsepower. In fact Denny had suggested designing a whole new car. Anyway, none of that happened, and we are probably gonna see more such tight runs in the season.
Anyway, coming back to the race in question, had Byron pitted earlier and taken the lead over Reddick, he still probably wouldn’t have won the race. As Ryan Blaney would have chased him down, eventually.
Ryan Blaney could have bagged the cup
Look, Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin pitted a couple of laps after Byron, Bell, and Reddick. And Blaney all day had the fastest car on the long run. More importantly, his car was maneuvering the best in traffic. This is the reason why he could run down Byron and Bell in the same lap. And with 8 laps to go, Blaney was in striking distance to Reddick. And with 4 to go, Blaney passed Reddick and took the lead.
Ideally, Blaney should have gone to win his first Darlington race. But rather as soon as he passed Reddick, Reddick got in the wall. This caught Kyle Larson off guard, he slowed down. And Bubba Wallace had nowhere to go but to spin Larson. And Larson dived nose first into the wall. Eventually, all Blaney did to get that lead was rendered useless. The cars pitted on the yellow, and Denny Hamlin came out first, followed by William Byron in P2.
And that was it; Denny Hamlin led the race and won it. So, had Byron been in Reddick’s place, he would probably still not have won the race. And even here, the parity in the next-gen did not let Blaney make passes on the restart, eventually ending his day in P5. All this is thanks to Kyle Larson checking up! He had no shot at the race, but he also ruined it for Blaney. What did you think of Darlington, folks? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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