{"id":94711,"date":"2024-02-05T14:22:45","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T22:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=94711"},"modified":"2024-02-05T14:22:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T22:22:45","slug":"denny-hamlin-earns-busch-light-clash-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/denny-hamlin-earns-busch-light-clash-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin Earns Busch Light Clash Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The question was clear: can NASCAR put on a viable event on a quarter-mile track n the middle of Los Angeles in a single day? The answer was yes they can and yes they did! The third annual Busch Light Clash\u00a0 <\/span>NASCAR Cup Series race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was intended to be run over Saturday and Sunday, February 3-4, 2024, allowing for practice, qualifying and heat races on Saturday and the 150-lap contest on Sunday.<\/p>\n

As treacherous weather conditions approached the Los Angeles area, NASCAR was forced to change its plans. The Sunday forecast called for as many as six inches of rain in what is truly a desert area of the world, and to say LA isn\u2019t prepared for those types of conditions would be putting it mildly. NASCAR runs on a tight schedule and, with the biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500 scheduled to be run February 18th, and with preliminary events leading up to that all-important contest, it was essential that the Cup Series conduct this non-points-paying race on schedule.<\/p>\n

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Daniel Suarez won the NASCAR Mexico race – Getty Images for NASCAR photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASCAR made the historic decision to reschedule the historic doubleheader of its flagship Cup Series and NASCAR Mexico Series shortly before 1PM local time Saturday afternoon, citing concern for fan safety as well as scheduling issues if the Cup Series competitors needed to remain in the Los Angeles area for an extended stay, as severe weather conditions were forecast through the middle of the upcoming week. It also elected to hold all Saturday activities free of charge to fans, as had been decided earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

The NASCAR Mexico Series had practiced and qualified earlier in the day, so the Cup Series started with their practice sessions at mid-afternoon, followed by qualifying. Racing began at 5PM local time. The race was broadcast on FS1 and, despite seven caution periods, it all went off smoothly, particularly for Denny Hamlin, driver of Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE, a new model this year. Hamlin started on pole and finished first after 151 laps of bullring traffic. His victory marked Hamlin\u2019s fourth Busch Light Clash winner\u2019s medal and Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s 12th such victory.<\/p>\n

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Denny Hamlin started on pole and emerged as the Busch Light Clash victor – Getty Images for NASCAR photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamlin had to fight for this victory during the final ten laps of green flag competition – caution laps did not count – and he remarked about finding his way to the front after slipping back into the lead pack: \u201cA lot of it was just what happened in front of me with the 54 [teammate Ty Gibbs] and the 22 [Joey Logano]. You just never know what was going to happen there, but I got a really good run off of turn two and just got position. I was able to hang on from there. It\u2019s so chaotic – the restarts – everyone is just bumping and banging, but it feels great to win here in LA,\u201d he said \u201cThis is just a big momentum boost. It doesn\u2019t do much more than that. I clean off all the trophies every January 1st in the entryway of the house, and now we get to add one pretty quick. Really happy about that!\u201d<\/p>\n

The field, made up of the top 22 qualifiers, together with the highest finisher in the 2023 Cup Series had a strange cast to it, as the 23rd position was taken up by reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney\u2019s No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse, also a new 2024 model. While he\u2019d had a reasonable practice session, Blaney\u2019s car just wasn\u2019t where it needed to be in qualifying and he was relegated to the rear of the field. Teammate Austin Cindric, last year\u2019s Daytona 500 winner, didn\u2019t even make the field for this race, while Joey Logano, the 2022 champion and winner of the first Busch Light Clash held at the Coliseum, qualified second and finished fourth for Team Penske.<\/p>\n

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All 3 manufacturers were represented on the podium: Blaney for Ford, Hamlin with Toyota and Busch for Chevrolet – Getty Images for NASCAR photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kyle Busch, starting his second season racing with Richard Childress Racing in the No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started fifth and finished second Saturday night. He spent the last few laps trying to get around Hamlin but it wasn\u2019t his night. Still, \u201cIt was a good un for us. The Camaro was good; it was solid. I felt like the first-half of the race, we were a little bit better. The second half, we weren\u2019t as good, but we still came out of here with a second-place finish. Happy with that, but we know we have work to do on our short-track program and get better on that. Maybe some of the stuff we tried today will help us there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely does sting,\u201d Busch said of finishing second. \u201cSome of the adjustments we made weren\u2019t as good and some of the adjustments they (Hamlin\u2019s team) made were better. All in all, I\u2019m glad to have a good night. Glad to come out of here in one piece, even with all the bumping and banging and everything else that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Blaney completing the podium, that meant all three manufacturers grabbed a podium slot. Both the Camry XSE and Ford Mustang Dark Horse are new cars for the 2024 season; only the Chevy Camaro ZL1 is a continuation. For Blaney, having to take the provisional starting slot wasn\u2019t part of Team Penske\u2019s race plan. He commended NASCAR for its decision to do a single-day show. \u201cI think that was really smart by NASCAR. Maybe it doesn\u2019t show in the stands just because of what it was, but it gets a lot of support, and you also have the NASCAR Mexico Series here, too. I think that\u2019s good as well, to kind of grow their side,\u201d Blaney commented. \u201cIt\u2019s think every time I\u2019ve been here I\u2019ve been spun backwards two or three times, so it\u2019s nice not to have that at the last one. It\u2019s good!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Denny Hamlin leads the 23-car field at the green flag – Getty Images for NASCAR photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to Cindric No. 2 Mustang, those that did not make the field were the No. 18 Camaro of Josh Williams, Carson Hocevar in the No. 77 Camaro, Josh Berry\u2019s No. 4 Mustang, NASCAR Mexico Series eventual winner Daniel Suarez in the No. 99 Camaro, Austin Dillon\u2019s No. 3 Camaro, Erik Jones in the No. 43 Camry, Chris Buescher\u2019s No. 17 Mustang, Harrison Burton\u2019s No. 21Mustang and the No. 31 Camaro of Daniel Hemric.<\/p>\n

The seven cautions were short; they accounted for seven total laps of yellow-flag running and involved contact in all four corners. There were seven lead changes among Logano, Hamlin, Gibbs and Brad Keselowski. The later NASCAR Mexico King Taco La Batalla en el Coliseo, a 150-lap contest, went to Suarez, returning to his roots for this event, with Santiago Tovar and Alex De Alba earning podium spots among the 21 competitors.<\/p>\n

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Daniel Suarez with his trophy – Getty Images for NASCAR photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was talk about this being the final trip west for the Cup Series as NASCAR debates whether to conduct the Busch Light Clash closer to either Daytona or Charlotte, NC, where most teams are based. If so it would be a shame, since the former Auto Club Speedway in Fontana has been closed, leaving Southern California without a suitable venue – other than The Coliseum – to conduct a race. NASCAR brought more Latin fans of the sport to the track for this event, and did the right thing by choosing to make Saturday\u2019s intended preliminaries free to fans. Hopefully they\u2019ll return to the LA area, without the prospect of being drowned out.<\/p>\n

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Hamlin takes the victory at the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles in a tough race.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":94701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029],"tags":[9541,5054,7916,1531,9976,682,9789,127,9905,3046,10170],"class_list":["post-94711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-busch-light-clash-at-the-coliseum","tag-chevrolet-camaro-zl1","tag-cup-series","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-ford-mustang-dark-horse","tag-kyle-busch","tag-los-angeles-memorial-coliseum","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-mexico-series","tag-ryan-blaney","tag-toyota-camry-xse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Start-shot-Hamlin-leads-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-oDB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94712,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94711\/revisions\/94712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}