Were shenanigans at play following the checkered flag in Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway?
After he captured the checkered flag to score his fifth win of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, and the 59th win of his career, Denny Hamlin was told on his team radio by crew chief Chris Gayle to “give me some rubber” during his victory celebration.
While you could chalk it up to Gayle wanting to see a massive burnout, which Hamlin did in fact end up doing, the radio transmission sounded a little funny. Almost like a “Your arm is itchy, you may want to scratch it,” transmission.
Prior to that, there was an even more odd situation going on around the 1.25-mile oval as Playoff contenders and Trackhouse Racing teammates Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen skidded their Chevrolet race cars into the grass, seemingly on purpose, on the cooldown lap following their 24th and 25th-place finishes in Sunday’s race.
John Newby posted a video of the Trackhouse cars on the cooldown lap following the checkered flag at Gateway on X:
Macbook keeps freezing, so here is a grainier video of Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen going through the grass multiple times coming to pit road after the race. https://t.co/hwtRg1dLxB pic.twitter.com/p0j5wgGPYP
— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) September 7, 2025
So, what’s the deal? Why would the Trackhouse Racing drivers be driving through the grass on their way back to pit road? Why would Hamlin be instructed to pick up as much rubber as possible after winning the race?
Is it just a weird thing Chastain and Van Gisbergen do to goof around after races? Was it them getting out some of their frustrations after a less-than-stellar result? Does crew chief Chris Gayle like to collect pellets of Goodyear tire rubber?
According to Corey LaJoie, no.
In a response on X, LaJoie explained that the trip into the grass for the Trackhouse Racing cars was for a very simple reason, as was the radio transmission for Hamlin to pick up rubber — post-race weights.
“They post all the Playoff cars [in inspection],” LaJoie said. “Trying to pick up a couple pounds of grass, rocks, rubber to let you[r] car chief feel a little better when you roll across the scale.”
If you recall back to last season, Alex Bowman was disqualified from the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL due to his car being too light on the scales in post-race inspection. Bowman, who had secured his place in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 8, was bounced from the Playoff field due to the disqualification.
This allowed Joey Logano to advance to the Round of 8, and with a win at Las Vegas, Logano would make it to the Championship 4, where he would go on to score his third NASCAR Cup Series championship.
It seems that no drivers or teams in the Playoffs are taking any chances when it comes to post-race inspection this year. But this begs a question: Is there a way for NASCAR to police the post-race shenanigans on cool-down laps? And an even better question: should they? Or is this simply just part of big-time auto racing?
