By Neha Dwivedi, Staff Writer
Ryan Blaney made it to the Round of 8 with a win at New Hampshire, outpacing Josh Berry in the closing laps. Yet his speed was only part of the storyline. The attention also fell on a heated clash between Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs in Stage 2.
The incident happened on Lap 109 of the 301-lap race. Battling for 11th position, the No. 54 Toyota driven by Gibbs, who didn’t make it into NASCAR’s playoffs, locked horns with playoff driver Hamlin in the No. 11.
Hamlin, one of 12 drivers still alive in the playoffs, believed Gibbs was deliberately holding him up and putting other competitors in jeopardy with his driving style and repeated contact with other racecars. First, Gibbs was batting Christopher Bell and Noah Gragson, almost taking himself out in the process. Hamlin was just behind Gibbs, watching everything play out.
A few laps later, Gibbs was challenging Hamlin as he was trying to pass. Gibbs moved up the track and down the track, trying to block and running door-to-door with Hamlin. After saying a few choice words over his radio, Hamlin had had enough.
He moved in to nudge Gibbs aside and sent him spinning into the outside wall. Was it intentional? Not according to Hamlin but the last time Hamlin admitted to purposefully moving a driver and spinning him out, it cost him a $50,000 fine from NASCAR. Intentional or not, the move ended Gibbs’ day.
As the field circled by with Gibbs involuntarily parked against the outside wall in his battered racecar, he gave Hamlin a sarcastic thumbs-up. Hamlin, frustrated beforehand with Gibbs’ aggressive style of racing against his own teammates who are battling for survival in the playoffs, intimated to his team over his in-car radio that no one dared confront Gibbs because he was the team owner Joe Gibbs’s grandson. This also wasn’t the first time the younger Gibbs had roughed up a teammate competing for a championship.
Afterward, Hamlin was seen in deep conversation with Joe Gibbs and other Toyota executives. The team owner downplayed the skirmish publicly, saying the drivers should handle it themselves but Hamlin later pressed for leadership to step in on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
He explained that while every driver has the right to race for position, the battle was for 11th, where stage points were crucial for his playoff hopes. Hence, Hamlin argued that Gibbs should have factored that into his decisions.
“I felt as though I was a little bit wronged in the sense that my teammate out of the playoffs should not be the hardest car on the track to pass,” Hamlin said. “It’s just this is the race craft that I feel like is missing, that understanding of the situation. And certainly, I felt as though this thing is hard enough to win anyway. But if you’re going to have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the racetrack, then this will be really, really tough for any one of us to win.”
Hamlin urged JGR leadership to restate expectations, saying, “I have always went back to what is the last thing Joe (Gibbs) has said when it comes to non-playoff cars and playoff cars. He has had this conversation multiple times with everyone in the room but I think it probably needs to be said again. So, what I’ve heard is that if you’re a non-playoff car, any break that you can cut your teammates, please do.”
Hamlin closed by pointing out that if Gibbs believes he owes nothing to Hamlin or Bell, that’s his prerogative. But if the shoe were on the other foot, Gibbs would expect the same courtesy to keep his playoff hopes alive.