Depending on how you count ‘involved,’ there were 18-to-23 cars involved in the massive crash on Saturday in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and it started with a stack-up and contact from John Hunter Nemechek and Denny Hamlin.
At first, Hamlin thought the crash was just a byproduct of drafting track pushing that stacked up Justin Haley, Nemechek and then himself. That’s how he articulated the incident on Saturday after climbing out of his car.
“All of us were in the top line pushing off Turn 2. Some zigged, some zagged, most crashed,” Hamlin said. “I don’t know. I was on the bumper of the 42 (Nemechek); he was on the bumper of somebody else (Haley) in front of him. We all just got to speedway pushing zigging and zagging, and we all crashed. Just part of it, and now we go watch the rest of the race.”
But after a second look, Hamlin thinks it might have been his fault.
“Listen, I watched the replay a few times. Maybe it was my fault?” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“Because I want to be fair and honest on this podcast, and I’m looking at it, and I thought at the very beginning I was like, ‘What the hell, somebody in front of me zigged and zagged,’ and I said this on my interview, ‘These guys were tail-wagging and I was just pushing as I normally do.’
“Spotter tells me they’re locked on in front, that tells me I’m able to continue to push (and) everything is kind of good to go, and yeah. I was the end of the snake tail that lost control. But it looked like I knocked the 42 (Nemechek) kind of out of control. Maybe it’s on me.”
Spotter Chris Lambert told Hamlin they were stacking in front of him.
“I don’t need him to spot the car in front of me,” Hamlin said. “I can see that. What I like Lambert to do is spot a couple of cars ahead. That’s what most spotters do. You want to know what is the gap to that person and that person, if there is space to continue this push or not, and what I think I should have done, when he said ‘locked on in front,’ … I think it’s important as the third or fourth person to keep your line moving.
“If you lag back, you’re going to drag the whole line back. I’m trying to keep my line’s momentum going but once I get the car in front of me to the car in front of him, you let that be the momentum for your line. So when (Lambert) said ‘locked-on in front,’ I should have checked slightly.”
In conclusion, Hamlin said multiple cars can’t lock on ‘without the tail wagging the dog,’ and causing the crash.
