Denny Hamlin to NASCAR: “You Have to Make Tough Calls Sometimes”

“At some point, you are the sanctioning body. You are the big boys in the room. You have to make tough calls sometimes. Sometimes you have to make the right call even if it’s a tough call. And I just don’t know how much liberty Elton Sawyer and Brad Moran have in that moment.”

Denny Hamlin didn’t mince words on this week’s edition of his Actions Detrimental podcast in the wake of one of the most chaotic finishes in recent NASCAR history this past weekend in the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway.

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Hamlin, who was one of two drivers inside the top three, who were crashed out by eventual winner Austin Dillon on the final lap of the race, is befuddled by how a call wasn’t made the night of the race at Richmond to keep Dillon from going to victory lane.

“You can’t wreck two guys to then go win a race and reap the benefits of the reward of that,” Hamlin explained. “We’ve reached a point where it’s like a flagrant foul was made, but you still get the win. Like, it’s no, a foul is a foul. There’s provisions in the rule book that say this is inappropriate behavior.”

While he’s not the most popular driver in the sport, neither is Joey Logano, who was also wiped out by Dillon on the final lap of Sunday’s race, what he is saying has quite a bit of merit to it. NASCAR’s officiating team dropped the ball massively at Richmond.

“In a major sport, because we like to put ourselves in an upper echelon of sports in the world, you have officiating for a reason. But I just don’t know why we’ve allowed it to get this bad over time. And I believe you have a responsibility as a sanctioning body to set an example not only for your competitors but for the people who are coming up through the ranks to say this is how we professionally race. This is how racing goes.”

If NASCAR wants to truly be considered a legitimate sport, there has to be a line drawn in the sand of what is acceptable and what is not. After the decision to not penalize Dillon on Sunday night, Hamlin, and others, have vocally wondered what is fair and what is foul?

“Let me ask a question, if this is not over the line? What is over the line,” Hamlin asked co-host Jared Allen.

Obviously, Hamlin is upset about being hooked into the wall after a hard shot to his right rear quarter-panel from Dillon after Dillon spun Logano, who was the leader of the race heading into the final corner on the final lap. But when Allen asked Hamlin if the contact from Dillon to Logano was also over the line, Hamlin didn’t even hesitate.

“Yes! Yes, he did not try to make a corner. He just drove until he wrecked him, he kept going until he wrecked him,” Hamlin stated.

Hamlin feels there is a distinct difference between a traditional bump-and-run, where a driver shoves another out of the way to take the lead, and what we saw at the end of the Cook Out 400. And I have to tend to agree. Dillon entered that turn not attempting to do anything other than spin Logano out. Despite how well Dillon had run for the entirety of the race up until Lap 408, what we saw on the final lap at Richmond is not race craft. It’s a black eye for the sport. And for NASCAR not to flag an obvious action like that goes against the sporting code within NASCAR’s own rule book.

“This is called a deterrent system. And it’s to keep us within parameters of not getting out of control on the racetrack,” Hamlin said while reading sections of the rule book on the show. “And if this is okay, and NASCAR is saying — they didn’t say it, but I’m saying if they didn’t rule on it yesterday, if they don’t rule on it today, if they don’t rule on it tomorrow, tell me then what is unacceptable? Just crashing someone under the caution? Are you saying, you can do whatever you want on the racetrack and it will be no penalty whatsoever? How can you ever take us seriously, and as a car owner, I spend 10s of millions of dollars to make sure our cars are fast and my drivers have an equal opportunity to go out and race. However, if you’re telling me anyone can just go out there and wipe us out intentionally, that is not the sport I invested in. So, I have a problem with that.”

So, if Sunday was over the line? At what point is a post-race incident not over the line? Are bump and runs like what we saw from Logano onto William Byron at Darlington a couple of seasons ago acceptable? Hamlins says it needs to be on a case-by-case basis, but that NASCAR has to make a call, not just sit on their hands and wait for a loud uproar from drivers, fans, social media, or wherever else, to officiate.

“You make common sense decisions, and they’re not always going to be 100% right. You can always make an argument one way or another. The one thing about ball and strike calls is you at least have a, they put a box on TV now to show you where that dot lands.”

Hamlin continued, “This is just part of officiating. This is just part of being the big boy, and NASCAR is the big boy, and they have to make big boy decisions sometimes. In the best interest of their sport.”

Will NASCAR make the decision to penalize Dillon in some form or fashion? That will be what everyone within the industry awaits on Tuesday as NASCAR is expected to drop its weekly penalty report in the late afternoon.