NASCAR 2026: Denny Hamlin has a plan to fix the Daytona 500

NASCAR star Denny Hamlin has a fix for a major issue affecting the racing at the Daytona 500.

Sunday's Great American Race produced a thrilling finish, with Tyler Reddick charging to the front and taking the black-and-white checkered flag on the final lap to win his first-ever Daytona 500.

However, earlier in the race, it hadn't always been like that. Fuel saving is a key factor in modern-day NASCAR, particularly at superspeedways such as Daytona, where drivers come off full throttle to save gas and go as long as possible without coming down pit road.

That was the case once again on Sunday, with drivers pacing themselves throughout the 200 laps and looking to gain an edge by pitting under a caution.

After the race, Ryan Blaney claimed that the sport needed to come up with a fix, and post-race, Hamlin revealed that he has a plan.

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Denny Hamlin: How we fix Daytona 500 racing

"There’s a way, but we’re going to have to increase the speeds by a lot," Hamlin told the media. "You’re going to have to make it to where handling matters.

"That’s going to spread the field. That’s going to make it to where we’re not...it’ll look a little more like racing from the past.

"But as long as their insurance company is okay with it, you’re going to have to speed up the cars because right now we’re so planted in the racetrack that we can just run in this really tight pack."

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Clash expirement at Daytona

Making the above changes would require some work to be done, but Hamlin believes that bringing the Clash exhibition back to Daytona International Speedway and experimenting could help.

"One of the suggestions that we talked about just a few days ago is come here next year in the Clash," Hamlin added.

"Let a few of us come up with a package that we think you won’t see any fuel saving, you’re just going to see people hanging on.

"That would be the only fix."