Denny Hamlin wants NASCAR drivers shown replays after Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain dive-bomb wreck

Coming out of the weekend at COTA, there was one media interaction that didn’t sit particularly well with Denny Hamlin, who has become a sort of hybrid competitor and media personality himself.

He wasn’t thrilled that both Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott ducked questions about a dustup on the track.

Chastain dive-bombed Elliott on a turn early on in Lap 1 of the race, sending the driver of the No. 9 car spinning amidst a sea of steel and smoking tires. Elliott vowed to get his revenge, though he’d later be presented with the opportunity to get it and pass it up.

But Hamlin wanted to hear more from each driver about the interaction.

Neither driver presented those answers.

“I think to each his own,” Denny Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “It’s hard for me to judge why the no comment, but obviously as a media person like I am today, right, it’s my job to analyze and just say, ‘Eh, wish we would have got something out of you there.’”

Hamlin’s co-host on the podcast offered a creative solution to get drivers to open up more post-race. He said that FOX’s post-race interviewers should carry a tablet with them, so they can quickly show a replay of key moments from the race.

Then it’ll be much harder to duck out of questions, like Chastain and Elliott did on Sunday evening.

“I like that. I like that because for us media members it’s crucial to getting those comments and those snippets of quotes from the driver when they’re hot, right out of the car, they just got wrecked,” Denny Hamlin said. “Show them that they got wrecked and then we’ll get those bold comments from them. So it would be better for FOX and others to like, ‘Hey, here’s what happened,’ right before a cut to Jamie Little and Jamie asks you what did you see out there.”

Will the idea from Denny Hamlin’s podcast gain some steam and perhaps inch closer toward implementation? We’ll have to see. There would be some tricky timing elements and logistical concerns to work through.

But anything that can produce more real moments from the drivers is something the fans would almost certainly be for.