Hamlin calls out RCR, Childress defends honor

DOVER, Del. -- Friday at Dover International Speedway, team owner Richard Childress wasted no time defending his organization's honor after Chase leader Denny Hamlin aimed a salvo of derision and innuendo at Richard Childress Racing.

The complexion of the seventh annual Chase changed radically this week after NASCAR gave New Hampshire winner Clint Bowyer's RCR team a multi-faceted penalty -- which RCR has appealed -- including 150-point deductions in both the drivers' and owners' standings that knocked Bowyer and the team from second to 12th in the standings.

He said, he said

• Childress defends his team
• Hamlin saw penalty coming
• Bowyer defiant about penalty

"I'm not too discouraged with what we ended up with [at New Hampshire]," Hamlin said of his runner-up finish behind Bowyer. "But I know we were the fastest legal car."

With that, the "he said, he said" was on in force as Hamlin was in the media center less than an hour before Childress visited. But even as Hamlin knew RCR's contention was its car's measurement discrepancy was caused when it was pushed to Victory Lane by a tow truck, the media told Childress of Hamlin's comments.

RCR's explanation didn't fly too well with Hamlin, who said one of his cars that was brought back to the garage via a wrecker at Atlanta was damaged worse than Bowyer's.

"The car that I had in Atlanta [was] towed all the way in and the tow truck destroyed the trunk," Hamlin said. "We never replaced one thing on the tail of this car and it just went through inspection fine. My car went through way more destruction than [Bowyer's] did just getting a simple push and my car is fine."

Hamlin was also slightly offended that Bowyer, in a media briefing earlier Friday had questioned the legality of Hamlin's and four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson's cars since they had to go through the post-race height-check at NHMS twice each.

"That's pretty standard -- there's a lot of weeks where that stuff happens," Hamlin said. "It even happens during qualifying inspection, race inspection -- you see cars having to go back through. Our cars did have to go through twice. Those cars get extremely, extremely hot and when they do they either settle down or they settle high.

"That's what that grace period is for and they let you go back through again to make sure, because that's something that's an issue when the cars get hot. Our car came back and it was correct, but it wasn't built incorrect and that's one thing that their [RCR] car was -- was built incorrectly.

"In the garage, everyone has known it for months -- it's not two weeks old. This is something that's been going on for months. They've [the No. 33 team] been warned for a long time, way before Richmond. They knew it was wrong way before [New Hampshire] and I felt like they wanted to get everything they could. What did they have to lose, really? You almost can't fault them for that."

In turn, Childress didn't like Hamlin's insinuation one bit. (Continued)