NASCAR Monday Mash-Up: Denny Hamlin embraces his villain role
This weekend, NASCAR made the trip to the Pocono Mountains and despite three great races, Denny Hamlin is the big story. There was a lot of history made at Pocono Raceway this week. While most of the focus should rightfully be on the Cup Series drama from Sunday, the Xfinity and Truck Series races produced some thrilling finishes as well.
Before we talk about Denny Hamlin, we have to recap what went down leading up to Sunday.
On Saturday, due to rain on Friday night, we got a triple header at the Tricky Triangle. The ARCA Menards Series got things going in the morning. Surprise surprise, Jesse Love won again for Venturini Motorsports.
Then, we got into the Truck Series action. We had some Cup Series talent in the race with Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, and Ross Chastain.
This is where we got our first great finish of the weekend. Rowdy put an amazing move on Corey Heim on the last lap. The victory gave Kyle Busch Motorsports its 100th win in the series.
As for the Xfinity Series, we had a great race that got a little messy at times. Josh Berry owned the day, winning both the opening stages of the race. However, he was unable to hold onto it as the race went into its final restart.
Austin Hill wins this one for his fourth victory of the season.
Now, let’s get into the Cup Series action and all the drama around Denny Hamlin.
Restart chaos, a helmet throw, and a pit road scuffle
The wildest part of this whole Pocono weekend is that Hamlin was able to steal the show and the headlines after we saw a helmet throw from Austin Dillon meant for Tyler Reddick’s car. The 23XI Racing driver was able to miss the toss fairly easily.
Ryan Preece almost jumped through Corey LaJoie’s car after the race screaming obscenities. Preece was spun out with two laps to go and was the eventual reason for the final caution as he sat unable to move on the track.
Let’s not forget the seemingly endless Stage 2 restarts that took out Joey Logano and Daniel Suárez, either.
The best part of the whole Logano situation was hearing him on audio screaming about how the safety crew wasn’t working fast enough. Imagine the most insane road rage you’ve ever had, and increase it by 5x.
Denny Hamlin leans into being the bad guy
While all of that was fun and all, we know what you’re here for. So, let’s talk about it. Denny Hamlin and his team planned out their strategy for the day. It ended up working out, too. Coming off the last green flag pit stops, Hamlin was able to get behind Larson and start going to work on the lead.
With the race winding down, Hamlin pressured Larson up the track in Turn 2 and Larson hit the wall. From the 5 team’s perspective, Hamlin pushed him into it. Hamlin claims he never made contact with the HendrickMotors.com Chevy Camaro.
You be the judge. Larson gave Hamlin a door tap under caution after this.
That’s not all that went down, though. After the race, Larson admitted he was “pissed”. While the two are friends off the track, that might not be the same story on the track moving forward.
With so much on the line for Denny Hamlin, 7th win at Pocono, 50th win in Cup Series, and 600th Toyota win in NASCAR – it is no wonder why he was so aggressive.
That doesn’t mean he can’t be criticized though. Kyle Petty did not hold back on his postrace recap as he said time and again he did not “appreciate” that driving from Hamlin.
It gets a little more awkward when you see that Martin Truex Jr. also called the move on Kyle Larson “dirty.” He said he could have done the same thing and won, but didn’t.
As for the boos? Denny Hamlin wasn’t worried one bit by them.
“I love it, I love it. They can boo my rock out here [at Pocono] in a few years.”