Denny Hamlin evaluates Chandler Smith, Cole Custer incident at Martinsville, postrace fight

Denny Hamlin weighed in on the incident between Chandler Smith and Cole Custer at the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff race at Martinsville on Sunday. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin shared his thoughts on Custer hitting Smith on a restart that led to a post-race fight.

“I view it similarly to the Truck race. The only difference is that Chandler I thought tried his best to get around the double zero (Custer) in a timely fashion. He tried to pass him cleanly and he was just running out of laps, running out of tire. So he chose to move the double zero up the racetrack,” Hamlin said.

“It’s the same thing [Ryan] Blaney did to anybody that was in his way this past weekend. We’re celebrating Blaney, so I guess we should probably celebrate Chandler’s move there.”

Hamlin went on to discuss how Custer responded to the move which was to “wipe him out in Turn1 and knock him up the race track.” The three-time Daytona 500 winner added, “You can look at it as though that’s good defense because if Chandler wins, Cole’s out. So that’s good defense, but it certainly is a tough scenario because Chandler had to win, Cole’s trying to protect his spot in the final four.”

Denny Hamlin shares more on the Chandler Smith and Cole Custer incident

After the race, Smith punched Custer before multiple people stepped in to break up the altercation. Smith did back away from Custer after throwing the punch, but Hamlin said, “He had a chance to charge him.” Hamlin then added, “I don’t know. I’m probably just the wrong guy to ask on this.”

Cole Custer’s move on Chandler Smith led to him advancing to the Championship 4. Smith will not compete for the title as he was eliminated from the playoffs.

“Obviously, he’s not happy but at the end of the day, he’s put us in the wall a few times this year and his mistakes caught up with him,” Custer said after the race, per NASCAR.com. “He used the bumper on me. I used the bumper on him. So what comes around goes around in this deal. I don’t know how we’re not even. Then, he punches me in the face. I can’t even tell if he really punched me in the face, it was so soft.”

“I was extremely pissed off, Smith said. “I gave him five laps before that caution came out and beat his bumper off and never shipped him or anything like that. Then finally, it’s like, alright, the laps are winding down. I’m in a must-win. The 20’s [Almirola] starting to drive away. He was really good all day. I can’t waste any more time with him. So I finally had a good enough run and pushed him up the racetrack and went on our way.”