Oh, constant variety of sport! The thrill of victory! The agony of defeat! While Joey Logano enjoyed the former at the conclusion of this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Kevin Harvick shared the latter. On lap 161, Harvick misjudged leader Hamlin’s corner-exit speed, bumped the tail of the FedEx-liveried Toyota, and sent Hamlin sliding into the wall at the bottom of the track. On its return bounce, Hamlin’s car clipped the side of Dale, Jr.’s Chevy, ripping open the bodywork.
Frustrated, Hamlin hurled his HANS at Harvick’s under-caution car. Dang. It’s a long way from the famed Cale Yarborough/Donnie Allison brawl of Daytona ’79. It’s also against new safety rules firmed up by NASCAR VP of competition and racing development Robin Pemberton in the wake of the fatal Tony Stewart/Kevin Ward, Jr. incident.
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Still, there’s something about hurling a HANS device onto the racetrack that just oozes petulant, impotent rage. Not even charmingly retrograde, it’s just kind of sad. Having said that, Hamlin did at least manage to hit Harvick’s car, so he’s got that goin’ for him. He’s definitely the one driver in the mess that we’d take to the carnival midway as a ringer.
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Davey G. Johnson has been writing about the machines that move us since 2001. His first automobile was an El Camino, his first motorcycle a Guzzi, and his first sports car a Porsche, informing his admittedly fungible belief that one should haul American, drive German, and ride Italian.
