The Denny Hamlin/Corey LaJoie Twitter beef continues to add new layers seemingly each day.
Now, on the latest Sunday Money Podcast, which dropped on Wednesday, LaJoie reveals that after a bonus episode of the show from the week before, where LaJoie broke down the beef with Hamlin, which stemmed from Twitter and ignited when LaJoie finished higher than Hamlin at Martinsville, Hamlin threatened to crash him at Homestead via text message. According to LaJoie, Hamlin then texted Go Fas Racing’s team owner, general manager and crew chief the same thing.
“He texts me on Friday night and says congrats on getting your car crashed,” LaJoie recalled on the show.
LaJoie says he simply responded with a thumbs up emoji. And thought that would be it. But that was not even close to the end of this chapter of the feud.
LaJoie continued by saying, “He proceeded to text my car owner Mason [St. Hilaire], my general manager as well as my crew chief and says, ‘Hey congrats on getting your stuff crashed. Your driver’s gotta learn a hard lesson.'”
When the co-hosts of the show were surprised by the threat from Hamlin, LaJoie responded back, “Oh yeah, he was full psycho mode.”
From here, LaJoie’s car owner — worried he would lose a $300,000 race car due to a crash from a stupid Twitter beef — forwarded the threatening texts to NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell.
“So [St. Hilaire] sends this stuff to O’Donnell, and he’s like, ‘Okay. Look, if you’re going to wreck somebody, don’t premeditate it. We already suspended Matt Kenseth for wrecking Joey Logano on purpose. Now, something is actually premeditated so we’re going to have to hit it harder.'”
Once LaJoie and Hamlin arrived in Homestead, NASCAR Cup Series director Jay Fabian reached out to both drivers and scheduled a meeting in a motor coach at the track.
Responding to the claim on Twitter, Hamlin states that LaJoie’s account of the events is false:
Lol. Man. Guys just can’t help themselves. The above statement is FALSE btw.
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) June 17, 2020
While Hamlin denies LaJoie’s story, The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck has received confirmation that NASCAR did have a meeting with both drivers at Homestead.
Can confirm NASCAR held a meeting with @CoreyLaJoie and @dennyhamlin at Homestead. Officials had them meet to make sure nothing escalated into an on-track incident. There was no discussion of further penalties.
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) June 17, 2020
Whether this spawned from threats by Hamlin to crash LaJoie is still unclear. LaJoie says it happens, Hamlin says it didn’t.
If you have been living under a rock and are unsure of how the two drivers got to this moment, here is a break down of what escalated this rivalry to this point:
Corey LaJoie Keeps Beef With Denny Hamlin Going on Latest Sunday Money Podcast
Here is the full episode of The Sunday Money Podcast, where LaJoie talks about this latest piece of his feud with Hamlin:
