After Mother Nature foiled Kyle Larson’s bid to do the double — racing both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day — the focus has been on whether the Hendrick Motorsports driver should be granted a waiver for the Cup Series playoffs, considering he missed the race in Charlotte.
It’s a rare circumstance because Larson would have been able to compete in the race, but it was called early due to weather, and Christopher Bell was declared the victor little over halfway through. Denny Hamlin discussed whether he would offer Larson a waiver on the most recent episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“I was asked this question by a few people at JGR. They asked, ‘Do you believe he should get a waiver?’ And I promptly said, ‘Yes, sure.’ They were like, “Really?” So what if you want to race at Le Mans next year? Should you request a waiver? I said, “Hmm, that’s a good point.” I didn’t think of it that way. What is a major event? “There are many major events,” Hamlin said of Larson’s decision to race in the Indianapolis 500 rather than the Coca-Cola 600. “Kyle wasn’t skipping this to go to a high-limit race. You know, he was missing this to compete in the Indianapolis 500. I don’t know how NASCAR feels about him choosing Indy over the Coke 600, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that the Coke 600 is a bigger event than the Indy 500. Would anyone make that argument?
“I think yes, he absolutely should (receive the waiver). I think absolutely, he will. I would think that they would have a tough time — I think it would be very hard — they made this decision, without already consulting with NASCAR, on what they would do.”
While Hamlin believes Larson should and ultimately will be granted the waiver, he played a bit of devil’s advocate regarding instances where NASCAR has granted waivers in the past.
“The only difference, and I saw people say before, ‘Well, Chase Elliott got one before when he was suspended.’ Yeah, but he wasn’t allowed to race. Kyle was allowed to race, and had an opportunity to race,” Hamlin added. “It wasn’t, he didn’t have a physical injury. Because the only waivers that have been handed out have because of suspensions. NASCAR has said, ‘You will not be racing. You will not have the opportunity to race.’ Or there’s been other physical injuries that have kept people from competing, like an Erik Jones, for example.
“This is just a unique situation, for sure, that my guess is they would give him a waiver, which is fine by me, absolutely. I want to compete with him for the playoffs.”
The competitor and the team-owner in Denny Hamlin would like to see Kyle Larson granted a waiver for the playoffs. It’s easy to see why, and it would certainly be controversial if NASCAR doesn’t grant the No. 5 team one over the next couple of days.
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