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Denny Hamlin responds to Kevin Harvick's criticism, points out hypocrisy

FaceProfileby:Thomas Goldkamp•10/01/24
Denny Hamlin
© Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

Kevin Harvick went after Denny Hamlin following the race at Kansas, openly wondering why Hamlin would slam his pit crew and then admit to not being mentally in it.

On Tuesday evening, Denny Hamlin responded.

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He did so by pulling an old clip from 2016, one in which Harvick was very critical of his pit crew after a race. He tweeted a screenshot of the quote.

“I’m over being a cheerleader,” Harvick said at the time. “Those guys get paid a lot of money to perform on pit road. Cheerleading hasn’t been working so you have to get after them on pit road and do your job.”

In other words, Denny Hamlin was pointing out the hypocrisy of Kevin Harvick’s criticism.

The entire ordeal started on Sunday at Kansas, after Hamlin was hurt by shoddy work from the pit crew, costing him valuable track positioning multiple times. Hamlin finished P8 and came out of the car with some harsh words for his pit crew.

“They know that today was one of their worst days ever,” Hamlin said.

Then he continued and talked about his mental state at the moment, given a poor run of form in recent weeks.

“I’m not in it mentally, I can tell you that,” Denny Hamlin said. “There’s a lot of wires crossed and bolts loose at the moment. But what can you do? I’ll just do the best I can to drive the car and do my part.”

That was the comment that Harvick seemed to take issue with, primarily.

“I give up,” Harvick began on his podcast. “Why in the world would you say that? Why in the world would you get out of the car and say that? Part of what you do as a race car driver is you have to be a poker player. When you have that driver’s suit on, you have to play the game and you can’t open your mouth to put yourself in positions to be in a worse spot than you already are.

“Even if you think it, don’t say that. It just blows me away that you would say that you’re not mentally into it after the race and just say… I just couldn’t imagine ever saying that. Never point the finger at something like that even if you’re not mentally into it.”