“S*** Show With No Respect”: Denny Hamlin Sounds off On COTA

What’s Happening?

During his podcast, Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin decided to go through each of the following wrecks which continued to delay the end of Suday’s Cup Series race at COTA.

Denny Hamlin has long been a champion in calling out overly aggressive driving in NASCAR but on this edition of his podcast, he decided to get really specific. Here he calls out the drivers who, in his view, caused the wrecks. He does make it clear before he begins discussing the issues that what he is talking about is not taking someone out with intent, he is talking about shipping their cars into corners with no intention of making the corner, using the car on the outside, and gaining 10+ positions by causing a huge wreck.

In that sense, all the drivers who were taken out were just collateral damage.

You Need To Know:

• Denny Hamlin has been one of the loudest voices in the garage when it comes to overly aggressive driving. He has attempted to “correct” some of the driving mistakes committed by his biggest rival, Ross Chastain, but was still always given the short end of the stick.
• Here in this podcast, Denny Hamlin changes up his line of attack. Rather than focusing on angry drivers enacting revenge because of someone else’s careless mistake, this time around Hamlin rewatches the closing laps of the COTA race and carefully picks out the drivers who caused each chain reaction of a wreck.
• Fans have been waiting to hear Hamlin’s take. While the “rubbin’s racing” crowd will defend the chaotic disorder no matter what, many fans were embarrassed by the closing laps of the race even though they admit that the racing at COTA up until that point was pretty darn good.

Among the drivers he calls out for inciting the various cautions leading up to the end of the race are: Austin Cendric, Kevin Harvick, Ross Chastain, and Joey Logano. Hamlin says that they were primarily the ones driving way too deep into the corners, using up other cars thus starting a chain reaction wreck equivalent to what you might see on a superspeedway, which led to pileups and endless GWC attempts.

After he was finished calling out the inciting incidents of all these crashes and assigning the blame, Denny Hamlin proposed a couple of potential solutions while also stressing that if NASCAR likes this kind of racing, it is likely to stay.

One solution Hamlin proposed was to move the restart zone farther back, which would, in theory, give the drivers a little more time to spread out heading into that first hairpin turn. The second solution he proposed was to ditch double file restarts and revert back to single file for road courses.

Main Character

Denny Hamlin has been the loudest voice in calling out over aggressive driving. Yet, he admits to spinning the No. 47 at COTA on Sunday. Maybe a if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em kind of thing?

Around The Garage

Crew member and writer/producer, Bozi Tatarevic, ponders that if he’s already out of the race, is there really a need to listen?

Ryan Ellis is loving Hamlin’s Actions Detrimental podcast.

In The Stands

The very much anticipated podcast sparked a lot of discussion amongst the NASCAR fanbase. lotus38 pitches a podcast name change.

Denny begs a question and @theonlynick_5497 has the answer.

@bhp2488 claims that short track late model rules should be applied at the highest level of American stockcar racing. Are they right?

@claudettekramer6953 points out some hypocrisy streaks in Hamlin’s record.

@kruck96 says that GWC attempts should adopt IMSA rules.

@fivespeed5144 begrudgingly enjoys Hamlin’s insight and his podcast.

@howardrose8817 wants to bring back single file restarts, specifically at road courses.

On the issue of single file restarts, however, Caleb disagrees.

justBusinessbb has their say.

Toto_LZ points out more hypocrisy coming from the No. 11 driver.

Aw, man, remember the crying towel from the SPEED Channel days? Does Jimmy need to drop Denny Hamlin a line?

Everyday_Struggle again points out the hypocrisy.

AutomaticMethod2437 agrees…but finds it ironic that Denny Hamlin is the one calling all these other drivers out.

On Your Screen

Denny Delivers on YouTube is kicking back with a snack, waiting for ridiculous comments.

He also said that this podcast is the only reason he enjoys Mondays now.

From The Pressbox

Denny Hamlin responds to Jeff Gluck with this tweet.

Matthew Dillner makes the argument that the problem isn’t the double file restarts, it’s the idiotic driving and reckless abondonment.

What are your thoughts on what Denny Hamlin said in his podcast? Let us know!