Denny Hamlin regrets Horns Down at Texas: 'Their fans are nice people'

Denny Hamlin played the heel before Sunday’s Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Showered with boos during driver introductions, Hamlin threw the Horns Down gesture at the crowd in attendance.

That gesture proved to be costly, if you believe in karma. Hamlin’s engine blew up on Lap 75, prematurely ending his race. Hamlin, who hopped on the Ohio State bandwagon during their College Football Playoff National Championship run this past season, said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that Texas fans are actually “nice people.”

“That didn’t last long for me. Eventually, the karma caught up pretty quickly,” Hamlin said. “Their fans were the nicest fans in defeat that we have ever come across. They’re nice people.”

Denny doesn’t have a lot of fans in Texas apparently pic.twitter.com/HAqaFbar0c

— Rubbin is Racing (@rubbinisracing) May 4, 2025

To go back in time, the Buckeyes defeated the Longhorns in the College Football Playoff semifinal game. Ohio State went onto defeat Notre Dame in the National Championship game. Hamlin attended the games, cheering on the Buckeyes alongside his podcast co-host, Travis Rockhold.

Denny Hamlin blows up at Texas

Hamlin initially planned to troll the crowd after the race if he had won. Instead, he went for it before the race.

“I did say to them, ‘I’m gonna play off the crowd,’” Hamlin said. “‘After the race, if I win and the crowd is really booing hard, then I’m gonna do it just to get them.’ But you’d be surprised. When I went from Horns Up to Horns Down, actually, the crowd shifted for a minute. There were a few cheers that weren’t there before. We’re not necessarily right there in Texas territory as far as Austin.”

Hamlin finished P38 at Texas, his second consecutive finish outside the top 20. That’s proved costly in the regular season points championship race, as Hamlin is now 83 points back of William Byron.

“It was blowing up for about a lap or so before it really detonated,” Hamlin said. “I tried to keep it off to keep it from full detonating, that was [so] they can diagnose exactly what happened to it. It’s tough to say exactly what it is, but they’ll go back and look at it and we’ll find out in a few weeks.”