Tyler Reddick reacts to Ty Gibbs-Denny Hamlin incident at New Hampshire: 'I've taken it too far at times'

The NASCAR community has spent this week weighing in on the Denny Hamlin–Ty Gibbs on-track incident from this past Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Monday, it was Tyler Reddick‘s turn to chime in.

Hamlin dumped Gibbs, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, on Lap 111 of the Round of 12 opener. Hamlin was frustrated with how Gibbs, a non-playoff driver, was racing him, though he said he did not wreck him intentionally. Reddick gave the perspective of someone who is behind the wheel every week.

“I feel like I’ve always maybe — I’ve taken it too far at times, but I’ve always raced my teammates [well],” Reddick said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “When it comes to that — when you’re racing anybody — if you haven’t raced with them before you’re like, ‘OK, let’s see how they race, what it’s going to be like.’ If the tone is set early, it’s like, ‘OK, there’s obviously guys in the Cup field that are this way and you’re like, alright, every time I’m around this guy, I’m pretty much just gonna have to not mess with him.’ You unfortunately sacrifice not being somewhat as respectful just to get it over with. I feel like you just take notes, right?

“Obviously, with some drivers something may change, maybe you have a run-in with a guy that you know you have to be a little more respectful next time you’re around them. I just feel like you build that notebook over time when you race with different drivers throughout the field. Sometimes, you’re able to learn something, meaning if you race someone bad for a couple years, maybe you’re able to eventually say, ‘Maybe I should let that guy go.’ And then next week, maybe the favor is being returned.”

We’ll see if Gibbs races any differently when around his teammates for the remainder of the playoffs. JGR had all the positive momentum after sweeping the Round of 16. Now, all of the talk is centered around the incident between Hamlin and Gibbs.

Denny Hamlin reveals what he wants to happen at JGR in wake of Ty Gibbs incident at New Hampshire

Joe Gibbs said he wants the drivers to take care of it; Hamlin would prefer if JGR leadership stepped in and handled it. 

“What I want to happen is leadership step in and tell us, what do you want us to do?” Hamlin said on Monday’s Actions Detrimental podcast. “If you want us all to just race each other cut-throat, no matter what your position is in the stature of the standings, we can definitely do that. Like I expect myself and the 19 [Chase Briscoe] and the 20 [Christopher Bell] to race really, really hard because we’re all battling each other to get above this cutline or maintain our status above the cutline. If I get eliminated or the 19 gets eliminated or the 20 gets eliminated, and then we’ve established this ‘no rules — you guys just do whatever you wanna do,’ none of us are going to win.

“You’re racing against where we have seen year in and year out, and it will continue to happen more and more, like it or not, teammates are going to start giving spots this time of the year. … If you’re going up against that and not only not being good teammates but yet being the most difficult ones to past, well then none of us have a shot. We might as well just hang this thing up because it’s too difficult to win naturally, much less if we’re going to have the ‘everyone just races for themselves, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re racing for a championship or not.’ From my standpoint, I would think that Ty would want one of us to win a championship. His name’s on the building.”