INDIANAPOLIS - After being the fastest in the opening Sprint Cup practice session Friday morning, Denny Hamlin brought out the caution moments after the second practice began in the afternoon when his hood flew up, hit his windshield and split.
“It just absolutely blew apart,’' Hamlin said on his radio. “The whole hood. Killed the windshield. Killed everything.’'
NBCSN replays showed that hood pins were not properly installed.
The team removed the hood from its backup car to be placed on Hamlin’s primary car so he could continue to run during this practice session.
“The speeds we were going, when that hood comes up, it just disintegrates and blows,’' Hamlin said after the second practice session, which saw him rank 12th on the speed chart. “The good thing is it didn’t all stay together. The hood blew apart so much that I had a gap there I could see.”