NASCAR and Denny Hamlin trade blows over '$2 million error' rule change

NASCAR has hit back at what it claims are inaccurate claims by Denny Hamlin over a proposed rule change.

Mike Forde, NASCAR's managing director of racing communications, spoke this week about a proposal to change regulations for the All-Star Race, allowing teams to run cars with a mix of Next Gen parts which would be illegal outside of that race.

The proposal was nixed by teams, with Hamlin claiming that it would cost teams up to $2 million to take a shot at a race which 'only' pays out $1 million to the winner.

Forde spoke on the Hauler Talk podcast this week about the controversial proposal, appearing to suggest that Hamlin, the co-owner of 23XI Racing, had either misunderstood or misrepresented the idea which was put to the teams.

NASCAR: Hamlin may have miscalculated by $2m

"Denny talked about how this would cost – potentially – $2 million, if we went ahead and did this. I think his math was off by about $2 million. What, actually, it could cost, is zero dollars or potentially save teams money."

"His [Hamlin] reasoning – what he threw out there was if the car costs $300,000, he has three cars, so we would destroy every single part in that car trying to make it the best they can by modifying every part to its max capability.

"So that's $900,000 worth of parts that are now obsolete because they can't be used anywhere else except the All-Star Race. Part 2 would be that they'd be CNC-ing parts, making new parts with their partners at Joe Gibbs Racing that would cost another $1 million. So, almost $2 million just for this race that 'only' pays $1 million to the winner.

"That's incorrect. What we presented to the teams is that you cannot modify any parts. You cannot build new parts. You cannot create any new parts. Everything still had to be single source, but there was a list of things that we were going to allow teams to do."

Hamlin hit back at the comments on social media later, saying: "Oh it cost us nothing to run a race team now. Whew, this business is easier than I thought. BTW, Great stats on Sunday!"

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