Denny Hamlin: NASCAR 'needs to do a much better job than they're doing' with enforcing penalties

Denny Hamlin called out NASCAR’s officiating following the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway over the weekend.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, the veteran wheelman stated his beef with the way NASCAR has gotten involved in the last couple of playoff races, believing there’s already enough external factors at play each week, we don’t need the sport’s governing-body over-officiating each race.

“This is three weeks in a row we’re talking about the tower, or we’re talking about the officials post-race,” Hamlin stated, regarding the officiating in NASCAR over the last couple of weeks. “We have enough chaos in our playoffs, we don’t need them to add to it by bad officiating, but for three weeks in a row, we’re talking about them being topics of the results of our race. … They’ve got a tough job. We’ve stated that a million times. There’s been many times I’ve stuck up for NASCAR officiating.

“… I want to be fair to everyone, and being fair is understanding that they have a tough job, but it’s also understanding that they need to do a much better job than what they’re doing, and eventually we need to hold people accountable for not doing their job that well.”

Part of the reason Hamlin is frustrated is NASCAR’s inconsistent nature with dealing out penalties, which has made him feel like there’s a bit of bias coming from the tower over the last couple of weeks.

“You have rules, and when you rule on one one-way, rule the same on the next,” Hamlin added. “So, is it an accident the No. 6 and the No. 17 both had both pieces missing from their car post race? No, I don’t care what excuse anyone tries to give. It was clearly manipulated in some sort of way to distort, and when it distorted, it fell off. 

“It’s just one of many, and it makes it hard to sit here and maintain a neutral opinion about it, because it just doesn’t make sense on why sometimes it’s a penalty, sometimes it’s not. It just depends on — it makes you believe that there’s bias in our series, and whether it’s true or not, that’s the perception, and sometimes perception is reality.”

Regardless of NASCAR’s officiating, the veteran wheelman is in a solid position in the playoff standings though, 30 points to the good heading into the final race of the Round of 12 at the Charlotte Roval. He didn’t have the best afternoon at Talladega, but he avoided “The Big One,” and Denny Hamlin was rewarded for it.