Denny Hamlin pushes back on notion NASCAR is growing the sport with big wrecks, controversial finishes

Austin Dillon’s race-winning moves at Richmond this past Sunday, in which he intentionally wrecked Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, not only set the NASCAR community ablaze, but gifted the sport some publicity on sports shows across the country.

Only on a handful of occasions this season has NASCAR broke through to become mainstream, and most of the time, it involves a controversy or confrontation of some sort. Speaking on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, Hamlin pushed back on the idea that incidents such as the one at Richmond are helping grow the sport.

“It already is in the format,” Hamlin said. “We have eliminations style and all this other stuff. I think that NASCAR is trying to fabricate these exciting moments through eliminations. And the sample size of a championship just keeps getting smaller and smaller. You’re not fooling our core fanbase that follows us. The millions that follow us every week, you’re not gonna fool them. … A new fan that likes it, A, they’re not gonna see that pretty often. But you still can have highlights on ‘SportsCenter’ like when we had a three-wide photo finish [at Atlanta]. Why does it have to be, ‘Hey, look how lawless we are?’

“It just — anyone can tune in to watch a demolition derby. But you’re watching a professional sport that has professional officials, and you have rules against this. … I think we’ve built up a reputation over time certainly that would say it’s a bunch of rowdies and we’re demolition derby at times. Look at all the crashes we have. I mean that’s natural racing, but we’ve set it up through double-wide restarts, Green-White Checkered finishes. We’ve allowed it to get this far and show me some information or data that shows that’s growing our sport. As a team owner, I don’t think the direction we’re going or have been going is necessarily putting us at the adult table.”

Denny Hamlin emphatically declares Austin Dillon’s wrecks at Richmond were ‘over the line’

Coming out of Richmond, Dillon’s last-lap moves are the only topic being discussed and perhaps rightfully so, as it presented chaos into the playoff picture with now just three regular season races remaining. Dillon entered Sunday’s race 32nd in the points standings and is now playoff bound. Ross Chastain and Chris Buescher, meanwhile, dropped below the playoff cutline with Dillon’s victory and Bubba Wallace finishing fourth.

Hamlin, however, believes Dillon crossed the line of aggressive racing and should be dealt with accordingly by NASCAR. The sanctioning body is expected to announce any potential penalties on Tuesday.

“In a major sport because we like to put ourselves in an upper echelon of sports in the world, you have officiating for a reason,” Denny Hamlin said. “I just don’t know why we’ve allowed it to get this bad over time. And I believe you have a responsibility as a sanctioning body to set an example not only for your competitors but the people coming through the ranks to say, ‘This is how we professionally race. This is how racing goes.’

“… Let me ask a question: If this is not over the line, then what is over the line? … He did not try to make a corner. He just drove until he wrecked him [Logano]. Kept going until he wrecked him.”