RICHMOND, Va. — One week and a host of podcast proclamations later, Denny Hamlin said he’s spoken with Kyle Larson after their late-race clash last weekend at Pocono Raceway, sparing the intimate details of their back-and-forth, but generally saying, “I thought it went good.”
Hamlin drove away to his 50th NASCAR Cup Series victory last week after his contentious contest for the lead with Larson, bolstering his Hall of Fame-caliber credentials and firming up his playoff bona fides with the personal milestone. He arrives this weekend for a homecoming at Richmond Raceway, the site of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App).
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Six days later, Hamlin’s move — a drifting path that his No. 11 Toyota cut through Turn 1 that crowded Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet into the outside retaining wall — was still being dissected, with the jury still out on whether the move was fair or foul, and whether the circuit’s recent trend toward more aggressive driving was fueled by the stakes, the Next Gen car’s aero character and give, or a generational divide from the NASCAR garage’s old guard vs. the new school.
Hamlin and Larson had aired out their sides in post-race interviews and their podcast platforms, and the two shared texts Friday. Hamlin said he preferred an in-person meeting, but Larson said, “I didn’t feel like there was a reason to meet up because we were just going to agree to disagree and probably get more frustrated with him and I’m sure vice versa, he’d probably be frustrated with me afterward.”
Hamlin was asked Saturday if he would make the same move again, and he hedged, saying the decision was “split-second.” Milestones for the driver (50 wins and a record seventh at Pocono) and manufacturer (Toyota’s 600th NASCAR national series victory) were up for grabs, and Hamlin basked in those achievements as much as he did the jeers from the Pocono partisans.
Hamlin has had aggressive racing on his resume through the years but redoubled his dedication to that style after a series of heavily publicized run-ins with rival Ross Chastain. The 42-year-old driver pointed to those mounting incidents as a tipping point.
“Certainly, I was very vocal that I need to do something, I need to do something,” Hamlin said. “At the time, the scales were like three to nothing. I was very frustrated. My team was very frustrated at me for not doing anything. The mindset has just changed. You have to put it out there that you are going to be aggressive. I think if a guy is going to run into you, you are going to run right back into him. That’s the way I’ve got to change things from this point forward because, for the most part, it has been tough results for us at the end of races, especially the last three years.
“I’ve been spun out of the lead three times. That’s really, really tough, so I just said it’s time to be more aggressive. Certainly, hate that it came at Kyle’s expense, for sure. If there is anyone that I should protect, it’s those guys and my teammates. The win just meant a lot to me at the time. I made an attempt to pass him, and it didn’t happen the way I intended, for sure.”
Hamlin had executed a similar pass for an apparent win a year earlier at Pocono, with Chastain being the foil in that spot. Last week’s incident had a familiar feel, but Larson said he thought his treatment from an off-track buddy might be different.
“I would say I wasn’t surprised because he made the exact same move work last year with Ross, a driver who he does not respect — who he shouldn’t respect, at least in that point back then,” Larson said. “So I knew the opportunity was there for him to pull that move. I was more concerned about at the restart before me restore my inside, but even when I got the good push on the frontstretch, I was knowing or thinking that, yeah, if he gets inside, he’s probably just going to do what he did last year because it worked. But I thought I was hoping I guess, maybe because of all the times he’s wrecked me and our friendship off track, he’d maybe have a little bit more respect for me on the track, but then he pulled the same exact, same move. I guess don’t … whatever.”
Hamlin’s post-race defense was built on declaring that the two cars never touched, but several drivers agreed that the Next Gen car’s side-by-side aero characteristics can cause a driver to lose control with packed air almost as easily as with contact. The previous-generation car — which was phased out after the 2021 season — made racing on the inside of another car more treacherous; the current-gen car has reversed that.
“It’s so backwards to what it used to be with this car compared to the other car,” said Ryan Blaney. “You used to be scared to death to be in the inside car with a car tight on your right-side door, you’d spin out. And now the advantage is flipped to the inside car. If you get close to the outside car, you make them extremely tight, and you can put guys in bad spots of getting on their left-side door pretty early (in the) exit of the corner to get them out of position. And then you just lift and turn left and say, ‘Well, I gave ’em a lane,’ when you kind of already had that guy in a bad spot to begin with. But that’s just part of the game.”
If there is contact, there’s less penalty with the current Cup Series racer in terms of damage. The Next Gen car’s composite-body construction has shown more durability than the previous vehicle’s sheet metal.
“I mean, it is definitely different in this particular car just because you can get away with so much more damage,” said Kevin Harvick, the defending race winner this weekend. “Well, you can have less damage because you can just use it like a battering ram, so you definitely have to be more aggressive, and passing is just different. So when you have the opportunity, you have to try to capitalize on it in that particular instance.”
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With cars being closer, Hamlin said that the veteran driver corps have had to adapt to more take and less give. He invoked the name of a previous-generation NASCAR Hall of Famer known for hard but fair racing as an example of how driving styles once were.
“Even Mark Martin would have to adjust his style in this type of car because the days of the gentleman letting the guys go and you will just go and get them later – it’s just a different game these days,” Hamlin said. “I wish we could go back to those days, but that is not where we are at. You have to adapt to where you are at. You adapt, or you die. Certainly, I feel like over the last few years, I’ve decided to be more aggressive because I’ve got used up by aggressive, and it is hard to blame them at the time – especially in a race-winning situation.”
There’s also the question of upbringing and how the current crop of young drivers have adopted a brash on-track attitude. Harvick says he’s seen that first-hand with his 11-year-old son, Keelan, who is forging his own path in the developmental racing ranks.
“I think everybody’s taught differently from the very beginning,” Harvick said. “I’ve watched it all the way through with everything that Keelan has done at this particular point, and it’s rough. Like, it’s much more aggressive than how we grew up racing, for sure. That’s how you teach ’em, and I teach my son to do the exact same thing. So you know, it’s just the style and the nature of how they’re taught to race, and it’s just evolving into all the way to the top now. So it’s no different than these guys have raced since they were young kids, and it’s just much more aggressive than what we were brought up racing because it’s just a different style of racing.”
All those factors stack up, suggesting that the confrontation that came to a head at Pocono wasn’t all on Hamlin. Even drivers who have a history with the Pocono winner seem to agree that those run-ins are now part of the environment.
“I’m not surprised in general, I think, just regardless of who it is,” said Chase Elliott, who famously squared off with Hamlin at Martinsville Speedway in 2017. “It just seems like that’s just kind of the world we live in now. And yeah, that’s just however much each individual is willing to put up with is kind of up to them, I guess.”
