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Denny Hamlin throw horns down after getting mercilessly booed at Texas Motor Speedway

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones05/04/25brianjones_93
Denny Hamlin (46)
FOX Sports

Denny Hamlin threw the horns down gesture after he was booed by fans at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday. According to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Hamlin received the loudest reception of the NASCAR drivers who were introduced ahead of the Cup Series race.

Denny Hamlin was not the only driver to throw the horns down gesture on Sunday. Before the race, Riley Herbst said, “I walked out on stage and threw the horns down, and I never got more FUs in my life.”

It’s not surprising to see fans giving it to Hamlin as he’s become a driver fans love to hate. In an interview with Motorpsorts.com in 2023, the three-time Daytona 500 winner talked about being NASCAR’s most hated driver.

“I thought I was really just sort of a middle-of-the-road guy when it came to who fans liked or disliked,” Hamlin said. “You had like Joey Logano and the really popular drivers back in the day – Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – but as they retired, right, people wanted to root against someone.

Denny Hamlin is a NASCAR driver fans love to hate

“So, for a while it was Joey. But he hasn’t really had track stuff that’s really fueled it of late and I think I probably have. I’m just kind of the heel of right now.”

The horns down gesture is something seen in college football when fans use it against the Texas Longhorns. During the 2024 season, Hamlin became a big fan of Ohio State, the team that beat Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinals in January.

I’ll be honest with you when you jump on the bandwagon with the best team, it surely makes it easy and fun,” Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast earlier this year. “Just to me, the atmosphere was the biggest thing I noticed being so different.

“If I go to an NFL game, it’s a [Carolina] Panthers game and I’m not a Panthers fan by any means, Charlotte fans are suspect at best when it comes to their fandom. It’s like going to a library compared to going to when I went to The Shoe, and it is unbelievable. The crowd was so freaking loud at every play.”