DOVER, Del. -- Last Saturday night at Kansas Speedway, Denny Hamlin drove his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota between Brad Keselowski's No. 2 Team Penske Ford and Kyle Larson's No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet, attempting to thread a needle through a hole that proved to be non-existent.
Keselowski's teammate, Joey Logano, T-boned Hamlin in the aftermath before getting into the wall and settling down on the apron.
One might think the No. 22 driver would have reason to take issue with Hamlin for an aggressive move that relegated Logano to a 38th-place finish.
Not quite.
"I feel like I am one of the hardest racers out there and I would be quite the hypocrite if I asked why he was racing so hard," Logano said Friday at Dover International Speedway, site of Sunday's AAA 400 Drive for Autism (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SIRIUS XM NASCAR Radio). "If you ask me, that is what fans show up to the race track to see. They come to watch a race. They expect us to race. They don't expect us to just say, 'oh, go ahead.'
"I am going to race hard. I know that. I have done that in the past and I will continue to do that. When Denny made that move I didn't blame him. He made a run on the backstretch and had to do something with it. He got in a bad aero spot and both of them got loose. It happens. It is racing. I am not going to say, 'Hey, why did you do that?' We are racing and these things are hard to drive. We are going to make mistakes."
An aspect of Hamlin's thought-process behind the move -- he's already virtually locked up a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup berth via his Daytona 500 win, allowing him to strictly go for wins almost regardless of the consequences.
"There is a win on the line and it is a big deal; it is hard to do at the Sprint Cup level and anytime you have a shot it is expected out of us, not just from the fans but from the teams to go out and make the most of it and make it happen," said Logano, seventh in Sprint Cup Series points. "When I look at Denny's move, I would do the same thing if I was him so I don't really have any room to speak."
Hamlin's move and Logano's comments almost beg the question -- is it possible to win on a consistent basis at this level under this Chase format without being, well, aggressively aggressive?
Jimmie Johnson is typically known as being one of NASCAR's more calculated, precise racers, but it's possible he's just the exception to the rule.
"Well, he sure has won a lot," Logano said. "That guy is doing pretty good in this sport. It depends. Sometimes you don't have to make moves like (Hamlin made). Sometimes you are up front and don't have to make spectacular moves. I have also seen a lot of people win with cars that aren't the winning car and that is from making spectacular moves and gutsy calls on the race track or pit road or wherever. That aggressive look at things sometimes goes wrong but sometimes goes really right and you have a fifth or sixth-place car win the race. I think it is entertaining."