Denny Hamlin: Ross Chastain should have been black-flagged at Talladega

Denny Hamlin wasn’t happy with Ross Chastain during Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, and made sure to let him know after the race. As the Toyotas made their move on the outside of the track to catch up to the rest of the field, Chastain put a nasty block on Hamlin.

These two have had their issues on the racetrack before, and this was no different. In this particular instance, Hamlin believes NASCAR should have black-flagged Chastain for swerving in front of the charging pack at a lower speed and stalling their momentum.

“I don’t know why in NASCAR if you can have someone black-flagged for forcing you before the yellow line to stop them from passing you, why can’t we stop the guy that is swerving at 150 mph when the pack is coming at 190 just trying to cause a wreck?” Hamlin said. “… He’s trying to get you to check up and then cause chaos. Get you tagged from behind and cause chaos.

“… There’s a reason we have a merge rule when you leave the pit area. You can’t just leave the pit area and turn right onto the racetrack. Why is that? Why when you’re leaving the pit area at 55 can you not just turn into the racetrack? Because it’s an unsafe condition. Why is it safe to say that someone running 20 mph slower can just swerve in front of the pack and cause it? … I’m a little frustrated by it because I’ve seen it get out of control, and I would like to see something be said about the unsafe merging that drivers are doing intentionally to block oncoming cars that are approaching them.”

Denny Hamlin: Ross Chastain block at Talladega was ‘bullshit racing’

Hamlin wound up finishing a disappointing 21st, coming off two victories in the three prior races. Hamlin was a little subdued in his criticism of Chastain immediately after the race. Having time to think about it, he’s close to being furious about it. He called Chastain’s move “bullshit racing.”

“But I believe the roles reversed, he would have, he would probably just run into me,” Hamlin said. “I would think he would run into me as he should and say, ‘I didn’t make you swerve. I was running my lane with the pack of cars that was on the racetrack. You tried to merge up into a lane that wasn’t there.’ So, I just think it’s bullshit racing and I think that um, I guess you got to just hold it down and if you cause a wreck, hopefully, you spin them out and don’t wreck yourself.

“That’ll be hard to do, but at some point, I’ve got caught in wrecks and finished so horribly lately on these superspeedways, it’s like, what do I care? At this point, just cram it in there and say, ‘Sorry, it was your fault, not mine.’”

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this report.