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Denny Hamlin provided some interesting insights into NASCAR did not use mud flaps or windshield wipers at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

With rain tires on hand, it would have made more sense at Loudon to have windshield wipers and mud flaps on hand as well so the Cup Series could have continued even with the rain that hit the track.

However, Hamlin explained that although these tires are called rain tires, they are not actually designed for driving in heavy rain like we experienced when the red flag was waved at Loudon on Sunday afternoon.

“Because we still don’t want to drive in the rain,” Hamlin replied in the latest episode of his Harmful acts Podcast. “I just think that these tires – even though they’re called rain tires – they’re more like wet conditions tires, you know, which isn’t that sexy as a name. It’s just that the wet weather – I’m telling you, it would be too dangerous on this track.

“We were – to start the race, I mean, we had two cars that got knocked out by the way before we even got going. So yeah, I mean, I just think it was probably the right time – when we got going, it was probably the right time. But I’ll tell you, it was treacherous for five, six laps before the tires – before the cars had enough heat on the track to create dry patches.”

While mud flaps and wipers are good when it rains at a Cup Series track, NASCAR just isn’t ready to use them on an oval track yet. Maybe we will in the future, but that could be long after Denny Hamlin’s time in the series, and the driver of the No. 11 is aware of that.

Denny Hamlin expects NASCAR to end race early due to rain in New Hampshire

Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin was doing everything he could to lead the Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before the rain started to fall. While he was discussing Sunday’s race at the Harmful actions According to a podcast, Hamlin expected NASCAR to stop the race due to rain moving into the region.

“We definitely knew it was going to rain soon,” Hamlin said. “(Chris Gabehart) told me it was going to rain on lap 245-250 if everything stayed green. When stage two was over and we won it, he said, ‘OK, you guys are going to be back in traffic, let’s say 8th or 10th. What do you need?’ I said, ‘I think I need to get a little more room.’ He said, ‘Just so you know, you have about 50 laps to get through this.’

“And then there was another short warning. It was as if I didn’t know, probably the third Kyle Busch Caution maybe or something. …But then that number just keeps going down.” Hamlin then said he raced until lap 215 because of the caution mandated by NASCAR. He also said Gabehart told him he could smell the rain.

“At the time, we were driving really hard to win and you could see drops on the windshield,” Hamlin explained. “It was like, ‘Oh no.’ You knew it was coming really fast, which is why you saw us all being so aggressive in those 10 laps or so that we got to drive after the second stage.”

Brian Jones of On3 contributed to this article.