Denny Hamlin, Marcus Smith Engage in Late-Night Fight on X

Boy, that escalated quickly. As the majority of NASCAR nation was enjoying their last slumber before the official start of a triple-header race weekend at Martinsville Speedway, Denny Hamlin and Marcus Smith were busy exchanging blows in the form of anger-charged posts on X, formerly Twitter, after Midnight on Friday morning.

It all started with Denny Hamlin making a quote post of a photo that was shared by NASCAR on Reddit of the newly repaved track surface at Sonoma Raceway falling apart on Thursday, which forced the cancelation of SRO America testing at the 2.520-mile road course, which is owned by Speedway Motorsports, the company in which Smith is the CEO.

Hamlin wrote, “When paving on a budget goes wrong. NWB will be next.”

NWB stands for North Wilkesboro Speedway, another SMI property, which was repaved recently, and will host the NASCAR All-Star Race next month.

Hamlin’s post drew the ire of Smith, who fired back with the following post, “This is a great post from somebody who doesn’t know all the information. Ignorance on display for the world to see! (I will delete this tweet when @DennyHamlin sends me a text or gives me a call directly to ask why this is happening.)”

After his 12:01 AM ET post, Smith quickly found out that Hamlin wasnt’t interested in hearing the explanation for what went wrong with Sonoma’s new track surface.

“You don’t need to delete,” Hamlin posted. “We’ve seen your reconfig record.”

This isn’t the first time that Hamlin has been critical about Speedway Motorsports track reconfigurations. In July 2021, Hamlin quoted a post from Jenna Fryer, which contained a quote from Speedway Motorsports senior vice president for operations and development Stephen Swift. In his post, Hamlin said, “With all due respect. This same group has reconfigured Texas, Kentucky, Bristol with 0 driver input. One of those lost a race, other one we don’t race anyumore and last one we put dirt over it. But hey, what do the drivers know”

While the latest shot fired on Friday morning may have been below the belt, Hamlin was scored a point.

Smith wasn’t ready to back down, and opted to take a couple of shots at Hamlin for his lack of a NASCAR Cup Series championship.

“Following up on my previous post, our team at Speedway Motorsports has an amazing track record for working to exceed expectations. Your nonchalant post is insult to hundreds of people that are dedicated to exceeding expectations for the Racing community, and @NASCAR fans around the world. You’re a negative comments would carry a lot more weight if you had a championship to back them up,” Smith sharply pointed. “Good luck in your quest for 2024.”

Smith then replied to the original thread with Hamlin saying, “Yes we take risks, sometimes they work sometimes they don’t. We’ve seen your attempt of the championship as well. When you have a chance, maybe you could give me some golf tips.”

These posts didn’t sit well with Hamlin, who opted to give Smith something more than golfing advice.

“Heres your tip. Let someone else run your business before you blow everything your dad gave you,” Hamlin stated.

And at 12:45 AM ET, Smith landed the final punch in the duel as he posted, “So proud of my dad! Hall of famer! If he had a Twitter/X account, I don’t think his comment would be family friendly. So listen here, almost @NASCAR Champion, you keep working at it and one day you’re gonna get a big trophy! Thanks for the tip!”

How about that for a late night show between two heavy weights in the world of NASCAR?

Hamlin is coming off of his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season last weekend at Richmond Raceway, which marked his 53rd-career NCS victory. Smith’s Speedway Motorsports company owns 11 racetracks including Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway, Texas Motor Speedway, Dover Motor Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway, Kentucky Speedway, and North Wilkesboro Speedway.

After the post-midnight scuffle, at least we aren’t talking about restarts anymore.