Denny Hamlin called Alex Bowman ‘an absolute hack’ after Martinsville incident in NASCAR playoffs

Denny Hamlin was furious with Alex Bowman after Sunday’s NASCAR race at Martinsville.

Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world.

Denny Hamlin was furious with Alex Bowman after Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, and he certainly didn’t hide his feelings.

With less than 10 laps to go in the scheduled 500-lap race at the Virginia short track, Hamlin — a playoff driver who was fighting for a spot in the final Championship 4 — was leading the field with Bowman — a playoff driver who was previously eliminated — chasing him down.

With just seven laps left, Bowman was on the inside of Hamlin in an attempt to pass for the lead, and his No. 48 Chevrolet got loose and made contact with Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota.

Hamlin spun out and lost the lead, along with several positions. And while Bowman won his fourth race of the 2021 season, Hamlin finished 24th but still advanced to the Championship 4 to compete for a title next weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

When the race was over and Bowman returned to the frontstretch to celebrate, Hamlin parked his car in front of Bowman’s to cut him off just in front of the finish line. Bowman drove around Hamlin, but then Hamlin hit and pushed the nose of Bowman’s car, and he flipped off the No. 48 driver.

Over the team radio, Hamlin was reminded to think of the “big picture,” which was surely his team cautioning him not to do anything dumb that would warrant a penalty from NASCAR or impeded their championship hopes. And eventually, Hamlin drove away.

During Bowman’s on-track interview with NBC Sports, he said the contact wasn’t intentional and explained he got loose and couldn’t do anything to avoid Hamlin’s car.

“I hate doing it. Obviously, it’s not — I don’t want to crash somebody. I just got in, got loose underneath him and spun him out. … I’m not trying to drive underneath there and crash the guy. I got under him fair, under him clean. I just got sideways underneath him, spun him out. Hate to do that. Obviously unintentional. Part of short-track racing.”

Hamlin’s post-race interview went a little bit differently, and as the crowd roared with a booing soundtrack, the No. 11 driver slammed Bowman. Hamlin said to NBC Sports:

“He’s just a hack. He’s just an absolute hack. He gets his ass kicked by his teammates every week and just, he’s [expletive] terrible. He’s just terrible, and he sees one opportunity and he takes it. But obviously, he’s got the fastest car every week, and he runs 10th. So he didn’t want to race us there. We had a good, clean race. I moved up as high as I could on the race track to give him all the room I could, and he still can’t drive.”

Of course, this is far from the first incident Hamlin’s been involved in at Martinsville, and his critics surely remember that in 2017, Hamlin wrecked Chase Elliott late in a Martinsville race.

But what happened between Bowman and Hamlin just seems like a hard-racing situation. It also seems like Hamlin will have to let this feud go either way if he wants to stay focused on trying to win his first championship next Sunday at Phoenix.

In addition to Kyle Larson — who entered the Martinsville race with a spot in the final Championship 4 locked up — Elliott, Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. advanced to the title race.

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