NASCAR teams spend millions trying to find an advantage. A tenth of a second. One position on pit road. A surprise strategy call that catches another team sleeping.
But after what happened to Denny Hamlin at New Hampshire, there is a fair question NASCAR fans could be asking: Have teams started overthinking pit strategy so badly that they are now creating their own mistakes?
Former Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) crew chief and current NASCAR analyst Steve Letarte thinks some teams may have crossed the line from being clever to simply making things harder for themselves.
Denny Hamlin’s strange New Hampshire pit-road mistake has opened up a bigger debate, and it goes far beyond one bad stop.
The problem started with the word “Enchilada.” That was the code word used by Hamlin’s №11 Joe Gibbs Racing team during the Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The idea was to keep rival teams from knowing exactly what Hamlin was about to do.
Instead, the code appears to have created confusion inside Hamlin’s own operation.
Hamlin knew what the call meant. His pit crew did not appear to be fully prepared when the No.11 suddenly came down pit road. The result was a messy stop that dropped him through the field.
And former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Steve Letarte had seen enough.
“This code word thing infuriates me,” Letarte said while breaking down the incident on Inside the Race.
So when did strategy become so complicated that teams start beating themselves?
Denny Hamlin’s “Enchilada” Mistake Exposes NASCAR’s Pit Crew Problem
The reason behind the code words makes perfect sense. In NASCAR, team radio is widely accessible. Competitors, fans, and media can all listen.
If a crew chief says, “We’re pitting this lap,” everyone around that car suddenly has information they may be able to use.
So teams started getting creative by using coded language to disguise the strategy and catch competitors off guard.
But there is one obvious problem. The pit crew also has to understand it. And modern NASCAR pit stops leave almost no room for hesitation.
Since NASCAR moved to five over-the-wall crew members, each person has a specific role in a tightly rehearsed sequence. With the Next Gen car using a single center-locking wheel nut, the stop is a rapid series of movements where one small delay or mistake can destroy the entire result.
So now imagine standing behind the wall, waiting for a strategy call, and hearing a random word meant to tell you what happens next.
Maybe the crew hears it clearly and everyone knows exactly what it means. Or maybe, as Hamlin’s New Hampshire stop showed, the message gets lost in the chaos.
And suddenly the attempt to fool Team Penske, or another rival, ends up creating confusion within your own team.
That is the argument Letarte is making. His frustration is about whether NASCAR teams are adding unnecessary confusion to one of the most demanding jobs in the sport.
Letarte has argued that there are simpler ways to hide a strategy call. Make the decision later. Wait until the car reaches a specific point on the track. Give the crew enough warning without broadcasting the plan to the entire garage.
But NASCAR teams believe the secrecy is worth the risk. Hamlin himself explained why.
The No.11 team’s plan was designed to create confusion for everyone else. Hamlin wanted to make other cars think he was staying out before suddenly diving onto pit road. The hope was that competitors would follow him down and lose track position.
It was a smart idea, until his own crew wasn’t ready.
Because a strategy that nobody can execute is not really a good strategy.
New Hampshire provided more than one reminder of how little room exists for mistakes.
That is what Letarte is criticizing. Pit crews are already performing one of the most difficult jobs in professional sports. They are jumping over a wall, working around a moving car, changing tires and completing a rehearsed sequence in seconds.
So why add another thing that can go wrong?
However, if every NASCAR team simply announces its strategy clearly over an open radio channel, rivals gain information for free. That is why code words are not going away anytime soon.
But Hamlin’s New Hampshire mistake may have exposed the flaw in the system. The more teams try to hide information from their rivals, the greater the chance they hide it from themselves.
Maybe Letarte is right. Or maybe Hamlin’s stop was simply one bad moment and the teams using these systems successfully every week never get noticed because nothing goes wrong.
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