Was Denny Hamlin mad at Austin Dillon after Sunday’s Cup race? Probably so, although most of his grievances on a surface level seemed to be targeted at NASCAR’s officiating. Hence, he said to the media in his post-race address, “We’re never ever gonna get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating”. But Joey Logano did not have the same temperament as his former Joe Gibbs teammate.

In the aftermath of his lost Richmond triumph, the Team Penske star gave Dillon a proper tongue-lashing for rear-ending his #22. Considering the #3 team held all-out intentions to wreck Logano on that last lap, his reaction afterward wasn’t all that unfair. And after taking his time to re-think the dirty deeds of Austin Dillon that cost him a home turf sweep in 2024, Denny Hamlin aired his own expletive-laded frustrations on the post-Richmond release of Actions Detrimental.

Joey Logano loses it, but Denny Hamlin lets loose

After Ricky Stenhouse Jr wrecked with Ryan Preece to send the race into overtime, Denny Hamlin restarted behind Austin Dillon in third, hoping for his sixth win at the racetrack. Logano, rolling off second beside the #3 car, appeared determined to take his second victory of the season and passed Dillon down the backstretch. But moments after the broadcast booth called out what everyone else was thinking, Richmond’s eventual winner turned Logano through Turns three and four as Hamlin snuck up on the inside. Dillon, aware of the #11 car’s advances, maneuvered left and clipped Hamlin, sending him into the outside wall right before the start-finish line.

With that, the race’s lap leader (124) teetered his car to the cooldown lap, placed in second place. Following him in third and fourth were his 23XI Racing drivers, Tyler Reddick, and Bubba Wallace, respectively. Indeed, it was a wholesome moment for Denny Hamlin, the team owner. But for the driver in him? Not so much. After all, in the eyes of Denny Hamlin’s admirers, he lost out on his 55th Cup Series win at Richmond.

Faced with this dynamic, Denny had his anger pent up for an entire day, and then he vented to his co-host, Jared Allen, on the podcast, “I just gotta get it out of the way. F*** Austin Dillon (followed by five more beeps). Damn it! I feel a little better now. But it’s just bottled up inside Jared. It’s just gosh, it’s eating away at my soul.” Allen, aiming to gather Denny’s emotions better, followed on those emotions to ask him, “How do you not get out of the car and do that? How do you not get out of the car and just let it go?”

To which Hamlin wisely replied, “Because I feel like as time has gone on in my career. I’ve learnt to just take a breath. Like you know, it’s easy to react, right? Reacting is the easiest thing to do. But trying to take everything into account first and then react. You’re not always gonna get everything right. I tried my best in my interview to see all sides of it. Let me think about my side. Where did I see? How did I feel about it? If I were the #3 car, how would I have felt about it? What did I see? You know, what was my motivation? I’ve tried to put all different perspectives into my thought process and then react right? That’s why we’re here today is to kind of expand upon that a little bit.”

Shedding much of that controversial Denny Hamlin masquerade, the #11 driver explained himself with the aura of a true veteran driver. He explained, “You know, I have additional thoughts about it. But man, I never found it to be super productive to just react and think about it from your own perspective. You should be. You should be very selfish for you and your team, and how it affects you. But I think through our conversations today we’re gonna try to put ourselves a little bit in other people’s shoes and draw what our opinion might be from it. I think that’s the way to possibly do this right?”

Regardless, although one of Dillon’s victims has taken the high road to look at things from a different perspective, most of the audiences have been demanding a penalty be issued for his aggressive advances against #11 and #22. And since NASCAR thinks the #3 car’s move was “really close to the line,” an official verdict could shake up the entire issue. As Elton Sawyer stated earlier, “If anything rises to the level in which we feel the need to penalize, we’ll do it on Tuesday.” That said, when Dillon finally entered Victory Lane, his revelations made a lot of things clearer in retrospect.

Should Austin Dillon dodge a penalty on Tuesday?

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Like his grandfather and team owner Richard Childress told Jim Utter after Dillon broke an 86-race win streak in the #3 car, “When it comes down to the end of the day, any of these guys do what it takes to win the race there at the very end.” After all, short-track racing warrants a ballet of the bravest until the very end. But provided with a brand-new tire option and a whole new Richmond experience, the unpredictability of the whole affair picked a big hole in the legitimacy of Austin Dillon’s fifth career Cup win. Many blame that last-lap caution between Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Ryan Preece for the predicament. Just like the man himself.

In his post-race interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Dillon revealed, “I saw the caution. I couldn’t believe it… I don’t know why that had to happen, but I told myself, ‘Hey look, you’re in a position to win, stay focused.’ Pit crew did a good job, put me where I needed to be. The restart, I thought the No. 22 fired pretty early, and he was able to be even with me, getting into Turn 1, and his car was a little better on the reds. When we went into Turn 3, at the end, I just had to go for it.”

As for his shove on Hamlin, he said, “I went in, sent it in there, got him loose up the track, and then I was able to down-shift and get left, and I saw the No. 11 come across, and at that time it was a reaction, but yeah, it’s part of this deal. You win and you’re in, and that was my opportunity.”  

But as Dillon tried to clear himself of any wrongdoings toward Denny Hamlin, the SMT data revealed a different picture. Along with Dillon’s spotter, Brandon Benesch, making some contentious remarks to “wreck him [Joey Logano]” when the #3 car finally got to the #22’s bumper, NASCAR personality Bozi Tatarevic provided some proof of Dillon’s infractions on the final lap. As per the SMT data on Tatarevic’s Twitter explanation, during the moment of contact with Hamlin’s car, “we see Dillon turning left (+33.9 degrees) towards Hamlin while his throttle is wide open. His steering wheel was pointed right (-3.7 degrees) at the same point on track on the previous lap (407).” 

Even Denny’s crew chief, Chris Gabehart, seemed certain that Dillon had “crushed” his driver on the final restart along with Joey Logano. But will all this invoke NASCAR to issue a penalty against Austin Dillon, now a playoff contender? We must find out on Tuesday with the official reveal.