NASCAR fans saw it and wanted to hear about it and Denny Hamlin has delivered in the latest edition of his podcast. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver got into it with Ross Chastain on the track Sunday. It ended up putting Chastain in the wall and knocked the Trackhouse driver out of the points lead.
Those restarts can get really nasty. Denny Hamlin knows that better than most. Toward the end of this week’s Actions Detrimental, the driver talked freely about that contact on the restart.
“So at the end of the race, me and Ross go into it,” Hamlin said. “Basically here’s the thing, right? I got to the end of the race, I saw that he was on the outside of me. I went into Turn 1 with the mindset that I’m going to get the best finish that I can get. I’m on two tires and I go into turn 1 and while I even went shallow on speed, my car plowed. .. They were calling the 1 car on the outside. So at that point, I knew that I was screwed I was about to go backwards.”
Knowing he was losing ground and quickly, Denny Hamlin just let the wheel go. He made no qualms about it, he did it on purpose. Hamlin said he didn’t do it for anything from last year. He noted being hit at the Clash as his reasoning. So when he saw the chance, he took it.
“I said, ‘You’re coming with me buddy.’ That’s what I did. It wasn’t a mistake, no it wasn’t a mistake. I unleashed, I let the wheel go and said he’s coming with me.”
Hamlin isn’t backing down.
Denny Hamlin Knows Ross Chastain Doesn’t Like The Rivalry
The veteran driver in Denny Hamlin has no problem admitting to faults. With a weekly show now, he can let it all air out without interruption. The rivalry with Ross Chastain seems to be fun for the JGR driver. However, he knows it isn’t very fun for Ross.
“Ross doesn’t like it when I speak his name in the media and when I have this microphone,” Hamlin went on. “But I told him that I have a microphone and I’m going to call it like I see it. And until you get a microphone, you can then say whatever you want about me.”
Now that Denny Hamlin has laid it down like this, I don’t know where this rivalry is going to go. It is clear that Hamlin has no problem going on the offensive. We will see if Chastain responds in the media or on the track.
Something tells me that the superspeedway-style pack racing won’t make this rivalry any less intense. If you see three 1’s lined up on the track, watch out! It’s about to get serious.