Denny Hamlin had a question of his own when he faced reporters Sunday night at Richmond Raceway after being wrecked by Austin Dillon for the victory.
“Where is the line?” Hamlin responded.
The retort had nothing to do with the location of the finish line. It came instead as the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was asked if Dillon should be penalized for his last-lap actions where he made contact with two drivers to win the Cook Out 400. Dillon first hit Joey Logano in Turn 3, which spun Logano from the race lead before he hooked Hamlin off Turn 4.
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Hamlin was running on the bottom of the racetrack in a position to drive past Dillon and Logano after the two had their incident. But a right-rear hook delivered to Hamlin sent the No. 11 Toyota into the outside wall and secured the victory for Dillon.
“We have rules to prevent ridiculous acts but it’s been a long time since those rules have been enforced,” Hamlin said. “Didn’t Layne Riggs spin someone out and get a two-lap penalty or some [expletive]? This is tough because this is what the young short-track racers see, and they think this is okay because they watch the professionals on Sunday who are supposed to act like adults just do dumb [expletive], and it’s just amazing that it’s allowed.
“But I don’t fault him because he’s completely desperate, right? He’s 30th in points, he jumps 20 spots in points, or whatever the hell it is. His season is saved. Now, he’ll have to pay repercussions down the line for this, but it’s so worth it from his standpoint because there are no guardrails or rules that say, ‘Don’t do that.’ And there’s no one in the tower that has any problem with it. So, we’re never ever going to get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating.”
Hamlin had resigned himself to finishing third before he saw how far Dillon drove into the corner on the final lap. At that point, Hamlin knew the Richard Childress Racing driver was “going to do something silly.” It was unfortunate, Hamlin said, to be one of two guys to get wiped out.
The radio communication for Dillon’s team left no doubt the driver was going to do whatever it took to prevail. After the contact with Logano, there was a sentiment of “wreck him” on Dillon’s No. 3 radio as Hamlin got to his inside.
Hamlin became animated upon hearing that and said, “Well then, what are we talking about then? I don’t know. Maybe they [NASCAR] address it. I would say not.”
The right rear hook is what Hamlin upset the most. It is a move that has drawn penalties in the past, including when Hamlin was on the receiving end of a right-rear hook from Chase Elliott last year, which resulted in Elliott getting suspended for one race.
Hamlin said hooking another driver is “100%” worse than driving into the back of them.
“I don’t know what the G [forces] were, but it crushed me on the right side,” Hamlin said about hitting the wall after the contact from Dillon. “He right rear hooked me, so what do you want me to do?”
Hamlin, his crew chief Chris Gabehart, and other Joe Gibbs Racing personnel visited the NASCAR hauler about the events of the last lap. Afterwards, Hamlin did not want to reveal what was said behind closed doors.