Denny Hamlin addresses hard racing with Kyle Larson at end of Ally 400 at Nashville

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson have had some heated moments in recent weeks, with the two seeming to come together on the track more and more frequently in key situations.

Such was the case on Sunday at the Ally 400, when the race went down to the wire and ultimately went to overtime. Hamlin appeared headed for a comfortable win when Austin Cindric spun out with two laps to go, throwing a caution flag and triggering the first overtime.

That put Hamlin right next to Ross Chastain on the restart, with Larson right behind Hamlin on the inside of the track in P3. There was instant drama.

Within seconds of the restart, Larson appeared to get into the back of Hamlin, seemingly boosting him forward temporarily. But Larson quickly lost control of his vehicle and ended up going up the track, cracking the back left bumper of Chastain and sending Chastain spinning into the wall.

That came on the heels of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson going at it quite a bit toward the end of the second stage of the race.

Hamlin was asked whether he was upset with Larson’s racing after the race.

“I thought it was fine. We were messing around with each other, like we were last week,” Denny Hamlin said in a post-race interview on the track. “We were battling for third right there on the stage and he ran me up, which was all good. I ran him up last week a little bit. On the restart with the 22 (Joey Logano), the 22 was mad at me, but the 5 tried to clean us out there, and I think he tried to clean us out at the end there but got the 1, so it all worked out.”

Like Hamlin, Larson would eventually run into fuel issues on a day when there were five overtimes at the Nashville Superspeedway. Hamlin finished in 12th as a result.

It wasn’t for lack of effort, either. He was willing to push his fuel all the way to empty to try to claim the win.

Ultimately he was forced to pit after the second overtime.

“We ran out there under that caution,” Denny Hamlin said. “[Crew chief Chris Gabehart] was monitoring fuel pressure. I let him know what the fuel pressure was. We were fine with just running out of gas, but we did under caution. So it was the right call. I was going down pit lane there out of gas. I was surprised it lasted that many green/white checkereds, honestly.”

After another week of drama between Hamlin and Larson, though, how the two fare against each other on the track in the coming weeks will certainly bear monitoring.