Denny Hamlin texted Joey Logano for explanation after Ty Gibbs incident at Martinsville

Denny Hamlin wanted an explanation from Joey Logano after he almost ended his bid at the NASCAR Championship 4 at Martinsville.

Logano was beefing with Hamlin’s teammate Ty Gibbs, and turned him during Sunday’s race, but the move took on an extra layer of curiosity, as Hamlin was right in front of Gibbs, and almost caught up in the action. Some thought Logano was trying to wreck Gibbs into Hamlin, to help out his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney.

After the checkered flag waved, and it was official Hamlin wouldn’t make the cut-line, he decided to get inside Logano’s mind, and request an explanation for his actions.

“I texted Joey after the race, and I said, ‘Hey, why would you do that?’ Because it looked terrible,” Hamlin said, via the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

Evidently, it all boiled down to some prior beef between Logano and Gibbs, and Hamlin had nothing to do with it, as he relented while continuing to explain the story.

“There was a restart where I got in line, or I was battling the No. 54. I cleared him. I pulled down in line. Then the No. 54 got in line. The No. 22 is a car-length back from the No. 54. Just power drives him into the corner, into me. I nearly wreck. It just destroys the No. 54. It causes a huge pile up. I just wanted clarification from Logano. I just didn’t know like, why did you do that? Were you trying to hit him into me, because that’s what it felt like. That’s what it looked like,” Hamlin elaborated. “Then I remembered, I was like, he brought up, ‘Well, me and Ty have been going at it here for the last, certain amount of time.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s right.’ Ty talked to me about this one the way to the race-track on Saturday. He says, ‘Listen,’ from Ty’s perspective, he had been used up by Joey for the greater part of the season, and Ty says, ‘Listen, over the past few weeks, I’ve pushed back,’ and he’s like, ‘I don’t know how to handle it. What’s the best way?’ So my advice to Ty was extend the olive branch first. When he catches you next time, let him go. He’ll notice it. He will notice that. Hopefully it then gives him the, because he has unrest, whenever he catches you, he’s probably thinking, ‘Oh s—, I’ve got to race this guy again,’ and the minute you pull over and let him go, it’s like, ‘Oh, I appreciate that. I should give that back,’ and then it starts a series of good deeds between the two of you.

“I think Ty has a legitimate argument, and upon talking to Joey about this a little bit, I was kind of the middle man, listening to his side and Ty’s side, I don’t think Joey really gave Ty a chance to give him back the good deed. If Joey pressured him right after that restart, and was all over his ass if Ty didn’t get out of the way, then Ty didn’t do what he said he was going to do, which was give him the spot. So Joey just said, ‘Listen, I got used up by him the last couple of weeks in a row, and I said, ‘Screw it, I’m going to use him up right here,’ and it wrecked him. So I see both sides of it, but I definitely side a little bit on Ty’s side here, that he was just running a race. He didn’t do anything ill-willed towards the No. 22, on that restart. The No. 22 just used him up, and in turn it knocked us up. So I didn’t quite understand it, and then I realized, ‘Oh, these two have beef, that’s where this is coming from,’ but I thought it was a bad look for Joey, for just power driving the kid into the corner, not even giving him a chance and obviously ruining his race.”

So the tiff between Logano and Gibbs almost ended Hamlin’s afternoon. At least we got to see Hamlin fight it out until the very end, but he came up just short. Nevertheless, we now know why Logano almost ended the day of two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates at Martinsville.