Denny Hamlin unleashes expletive-laden rant on Chase Elliott wrecking him, not apologizing
Denny Hamlin unleashed an expletive-laden rant on NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver in Chase Elliott following their incident at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Coca-Cola 600 was one of the most exciting races of the season thus far, and Ryan Blaney won his first race in what felt like forever to cap it off. However, the biggest story from the afternoon at Charlotte was Hamlin being taken out by Elliott, and not willing to let it go afterwards.
The crash occurred on the front stretch after Elliott made contact with the wall coming out of Turn 4 with Hamlin beside him. Elliott appeared to take exception with being squeezed against the wall by Hamlin, and responded by deliberately hooking him. At least, that was Hamlin’s side of the story after being checked out of the infield care center.
The next morning, Hamlin recorded his Action’s Detrimental podcast for Dirty Mo Media, where he went off on the Hendrick Motorsports star for what he believes was a situation where Elliott wrecked him on purpose.
“There’s no explanation that he could possibly give, which he didn’t, of reason for hanging a left. He obviously didn’t want to admit it,” started an incensed Hamlin. “He did, ‘Ahh, I can’t hear you, sorry,’ and then, ‘Sorry, I can’t hear what you’re saying, but my car just couldn’t drive.’ B——t. The f—ing wheels were dead straight. Even after we crashed, and like destroyed our s—, he goes down the back straightaway and you look at the tires, the front tires are pointed the correct direction. I pointed out in the data that I tweeted that once he got into the wall, there was nothing wrong with his car. He turned the wheel back straight, like he was going down the straightaway, and you can tell by data whether you’ve got toe link damage or not. You can tell that basically if your line is skewed one direction or another, where you have to turn it left, have to turn it right. Whether you’ve bent a toe link or done significant damage. For God’s sakes, Tyler Reddick pounded the wall twice as hard as he did and didn’t hurt his car.
“Everyone hits the wall. But he threw a hissy-fit, and he just hung a left on us in the most dangerous part of the racetrack that you possibly could, and it ended my day and his, and in my opinion he shouldn’t be racing next weekend. NASCAR set a precedent last year on this.”
Evidently, NASCAR believes there was more than enough data to concur that Elliott purposely wrecked Hamlin, and decided to suspend the Hendrick star for this weekend’s race at Gateway. If the governing body of the sport is willing to suspend their star, you know it’s a serious offense.
Denny Hamlin has to be pleased with NASCAR’s decision, but we all know drivers don’t exactly have short-term memories. Time will tell how this plays out throughout the rest of the season, but there’s not going to be a lot of good-will between Hamlin and Elliott moving forward.