PHOENIX, Ariz.: NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 hopeful Denny Hamlin is still mad about last weekend’s tango with Alex Bowman at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway that could have derailed the Joe Gibbs Racing’s driver Cup Series season.
Luckily for Hamlin, the stars aligned and despite his 24th place finish in the Xfinity 500 – the 46-time Cup winner will fight for an opportunity to claim his first Cup Series championship for the third consecutive year.
While his Championship 4 rivals Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. appear cool, calm, and relaxed ahead of Sunday’s 312-lap race, Hamlin is annoyed about the lack of respect from certain thriving drivers, specifically of his run-ins with Chase Briscoe at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course and the Halloween penultimate race of the year at NASCAR’s tightest short track.
And while the talk should be about Phoenix’s finale, Hamlin is opening up more about Martinsville and the chaos that has erupted around the final laps of the 500-lap race.
But for Hamlin, he doesn’t mind the chaos. In fact, he embraces it. And admits that his whole life is full of chaos – not just stemming from Martinsville.
It’s a living environment that he’s become comfortable with and acknowledges he thrives in.
“I mean, how do I get up in the morning and take my kids to school at 7:30, how do I go to 23XI and work for a couple days in the middle of the week during a playoff run,” Thursday’s Championship 4 Media Day at the Phoenix Convention Center. “I live in chaos “My life is chaos, and I just, I thrive under chaos.
“The more shit that is stirred up around me, the more I come at.”
How about distractions?
“Distractions are even better. I like those even more.”
Hamlin was on the cusp of making a bold statement at the famed Virginia short track. While the day didn’t start out well, the finish appeared to be on its way for one for the memory box until the contact from Bowman sent the race into chaos.
“I really wanted to make a pretty strong statement at Martinsville,” added Hamlin. “Starting in the back, going to the back again then driving all the way to the front and winning that race, would be the old foot in the throat heading into this weekend. I feel like that momentum was taken from us.
“But again, that momentum in my head swings back around into now I’m ultra-motivated because I just love that feeling of proving people around.”
Hamlin’s attitude while still miffed about last weekend isn’t changing his approach nor outlook to Sunday’s race, it’s giving the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry the fuel he needs to hopefully carry him to his first NASCAR Cup championship.
“Embrace it? Absolutely, it’s fuel,” Hamlin continued. “I have so much fuel in my tank right now. From just motivation. There’s a lot of motivation there.
“To me, I am so motived to go there and show them what’s up. It’s fuel for me. It really is for fuel for me. People don’t get into my head in a negative way, I turn it into positives and to motivation.
“Some people like to go in a hole and hide from it. I do not. I got at it head on and anyone whose around me knows and a lot of you in the media who have followed my career and when things go hay wire or shit hits the fan, I usually come out swinging and we will come out swinging again.”
Hamlin says the actions from Bowman and the emotions afterward will continue to stay with him until he straps in for the race on Sunday.
Hamlin vented his frustration about the lack of respect and even situational awareness when the stakes are high and whether the questionable moves really made a difference in the grand scheme of things.
“It does not take any skill to run into things. You can get into a car and run into me if you so care to choose and win a race. It doesn’t take any skill really to do that.
“The skill of it is taking someone’s line away and see where their weaknesses are and you adapt your style to work them over and get position on them to now you can take their line away.
“So, there’s just a lot that goes into it and a lot of it is seeing what your competition is doing and changing your craft to get around them, especially when you have equal cars.”
And Hamlin taking matters into his own hands with a post-race showdown of cars faced nose-to-nose one driver trying to do a celebratory burnout and the other voicing his displeasure may be a sign of what’s to come if Hamlin doesn’t feel the respect returns.
“My anger and frustration that nearly … if I hit the wall hard enough and I don’t finish. I’m out,” he explained. “My whole season is done because of someone’s else’s choices or lack of respect for my position during that time.
“That’s what drives me absolutely crazy is that some people think that their win is more important than yours. That win is no more significant to them than it is to me. That’s what I don’t get. I got to do something. Why?
“Does your career rely on it? Why do you have to do something? The season was over for the 48 (Bowman’s team). At that point, they just didn’t respect my position.
“They thought their win meant more than the spot meant to me. Which it did not. It definitely could have taken us out. That’s what pissed me off.”
Of course, many will call a pot-call in the kettle black for Hamlin circling back to four years ago when Hamlin spun out Chase Elliott who was leading in the closing laps at Martinsville hopeful for his first Cup victory.
The crowd erupted in angry and Hamlin was confronted by a pissed off Chase Elliott.
Hamlin admits that he made a mistake that night but both drivers were vying for an opportunity to continue in the Playoffs – something that Bowman wasn’t on October 31.
“There have been a lot of last few lap moves that I’ve made that I’ve been proud of and certainly others I haven’t,” he continued. “People take for granted sometimes. The incident with me and Chase (Elliott) in 2017, while it looked awful, it didn’t take much.
“I was just trying to get a bumper into him to get up the race track, he flat out spun out. The bump was too hard. I made a mistake. It happened. It’s just been irreversible from the world’s standpoint and eventually time it will go away, but it’s been four years. Time to move on.”
Hamlin says he does not think Bowman spun him on purpose, but rather went into the turn with a different mentality. Of course, the move can be open for discussion, but Hamlin believes Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports team would have spawned off a similar trigger if the roles were reversed.
“I do not think it was on purpose,” Hamlin mentioned. “I do not. At no point, do I feel like he said I am going to go in there and wreck ‘em. I think he went in there and says I’m going to run into him and whatever the result is the result is. That to me is just a lack of respect thinking that spot means more to you than it means to me.
“I am. It’s just a lack of situational awareness and if the roles were reversed there’s’ no question that team would as pissed off as I was. That their season was nearly taken away because of someone’s irresponsibility and
“I don’t care what they think, I’m telling you what I think. It’s my team, my year. All that is on the line. That’s what I am pissed off about. I made the final four great, but I nearly didn’t.
“I am more of a purest that believing is you have earned your spot there it’s up for them to take it from you in a respectful way. That’s your spot. It was my spot. I was in the lead.”
Hamlin hasn’t heard from Bowman and he’s not surprised and doesn’t plan to seek him out at Phoenix this weekend to chat either.
“I’m not reaching out to him. Again, it just shows a lack of respect, right? I think they think, well, I said sorry on TV, so that’s good enough. Guys aren’t men anymore.
“When it comes to penalties for aggressive driving, Hamlin doesn’t feel NASCAR will step in anytime soon and believes drivers will have to revert going back to their own plans and missions.
“NASCAR’s not going to police this stuff. This stuff fuels popularity. Drivers have to get back to self-policing, I think and that probably will have to come through the hard way.”
And it doesn’t faze Hamlin if he was booed at a track in his home state, he’s preparing for such a vibe this weekend at Phoenix.
Hamlin isn’t being ignored though and for that he knows he’s still relevant to the fans or the posse of fans who have funneled to support one driver.
“You would rather be booed than ignored,” he said. “The moment you are ignored is bad news. You are on the way out.”
As for Sunday, Hamlin ahead of practice and qualifying is confident about the speed from his Joe Gibbs Racing team.
“I am more confident in our speed this time around than what we had (previously).”
When asked if he will race Bowman differently this weekend, Hamlin says he will stick with normal racing routine and race how’s he raced.
“I race the same as if I had to replace my own fender, control arm when I raced Late Models,” Hamlin sounded. “I know in my mind that I’m trying the best I can to do it the right way. I came into this deal the right way and I’m going to go out the right way.
“I’m not going to change my style for anyone whether they like it or not. It’s not going to be the most popular.
“My breed like Harvick’s breed is a dying breed and we understand that but we’re not going to change because other people want us too.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
