As the dust settles on yet another Daytona 500, the racing world is left reeling from the chaos that unfolded on the superspeedway. The sport’s luminaries, including three-time winner of the Great American Race, Denny Hamlin, and legendary driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., are not mincing words in voicing their concerns. Their shared sentiment? It’s high time for a drastic shakeup in NASCAR’s superspeedway racing rules.
Hamlin, a seasoned Joe Gibbs Racing driver, has had his fair share of run-ins with superspeedway’s notorious unpredictability. In the 2021 Daytona 500, Hamlin led the race for 98 laps, only to be ensnared in a wreck following an ill-timed pit stop. The following year, a nudge from Brad Keselowski on lap 63 sent Hamlin spinning into a ‘Big One’, reminiscent of the chaos that marked the 2022 Talladega. The 2025 Daytona 500 proved no different, with Cole Custer’s reckless behavior spelling doom for Hamlin’s shot at glory.
For Hamlin, the issue lies at the heart of superspeedway racing itself: the inability of drivers to maneuver independently, resulting in pack racing. The Next-Gen car and revamped aero packages have only exacerbated this issue, leaving even seasoned drivers like Hamlin at the mercy of the pack. But the question remains: how do we fix the drafting tracks?
Echoing Earnhardt Jr.’s pessimistic sentiment—”The track can’t change fast enough”—Hamlin is similarly hopeless about potential solutions. He believes that while the sport’s entertainment value remains high, the balance between spectacle and sport has tipped dangerously in favor of the former, leaving drivers and their teams feeling helpless to influence the outcomes of races.
The predicament at superspeedways like Daytona is further complicated by the necessity of fuel-saving, which has become the only viable strategy for gaining track position. With cars running nose-to-tail and overtaking virtually impossible, drivers are left with no other option. Hamlin underlines this problem, noting the same speed has been maintained for 7-8 years, but with cars running 50 miles an hour slower. The result? Drivers are forced to collide hard just to get their cars moving, making it impossible to pull out of line at Daytona or Talladega due to the excessive drag.
Does Hamlin offer a solution? Yes. His proposed remedy to the superspeedway conundrum is a simple one: tweak one part of the vehicle for superspeedway races. Hamlin argues that the excessive drag created by the car’s large spoiler is what’s killing the momentum, resulting in cars going backward and blocking drivers from passing unless they have a longer line forming behind them.
Hamlin’s proposed solution is to reduce the size of the spoiler. He suggests a test to remove half of the spoiler to evaluate its impact on pack speed and to see if it creates more space between the cars. Can this simple change salvage the distraught state of the Daytona 500 and bring back the glory days when drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr and Denny Hamlin had more control over their destinies? Only time will tell.
The message from Hamlin and Earnhardt Jr is clear: NASCAR officials need to take immediate and decisive action to address the issues plaguing superspeedway racing. The discontent among the racing fraternity will only grow unless significant changes are implemented. The future of the Great American Race hangs in the balance.
