NASCAR has been under fire this year for a plethora of reasons. From grainy FOX coverages to missing pylons, the racing community has put them to task for mostly ruining the fan experience. However, the response to the All-Star debacle drew criticism from the most elite quarters of the racing community, including Joe Gibbs Racing star Denny Hamlin.

After Ricky Stenhouse Jr delivered an uppercut punch to Kyle Busch after the All-Star race, it triggered a whirlwind of media attention. NASCAR banked on this spectacle while punishing Stenhouse severely. While other drivers protested, Hamlin lent an interesting insight.

Denny Hamlin reveals the unreliable side of NASCAR

Busch spun Stenhouse out of contention on lap 2 of the All-Star Race in a clear quest for vendetta. Hence, the JTG Daugherty Racing driver had good reason to be fuming at his Richard Childress Racing rival. After the wild fistfight subsided, Denny Hamlin justified Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s flying fists, echoing his own brush-up with Kyle Busch at a 2010 All-Star race.

However, the excitement took a gloomy turn when NASCAR announced its verdict. Stenhouse was slapped with a whopping $75,000 fine, the highest for a fight incident in the sport. But this came after NASCAR’s socials wildly trumpeted the brawl video, cashing in on viewership. This prompted drivers like Chase Elliott to call out NASCAR’s two-faced tactics. “I don’t really agree with that,” he said.

Now Denny Hamlin has added fuel to this debate, revealing the sanctioning body’s untrustworthy side. In a recent media briefing, he explained how the higher-ups decide. “There’s certainly things that they quietly like to root for. But publicly they have to do something different because they don’t want it to get out of hand. I don’t know how much more it really gets out of hand.”

Denny Hamlin continued with his eagle-eye view, analyzing the situation as a third party. He said that sometimes people need to digest tough decisions, in a slightly supportive tone for NASCAR. “Certainly, I think that with that dollar fine…people would think that, ‘I don’t want that.’ So you might not get what you probably were hoping for with NASCAR. It might hurt a little bit in that instance. But I think they’re okay with general altercations,” he said. 

Hamlin also understands NASCAR’s justification for the fine, stressing the premeditated factor in Stenhouse’s aggression. “But typically just speaking, I think it was the amount of time that elapsed between the incident and when he got out of the car.”

Yet the JGR driver had ridiculed the insanely expensive fine, as he called it “kind of unprecedented from a number’s standpoint.” With Hamlin and other drivers backing Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s cause, the latter felt heart warmed with the support.

Stenhouse expressed his gratitude

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After the gigantic fine was announced, an uproar sounded in the halls of NASCAR. Besides Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin, veteran drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kenny Wallace chided NASCAR’s hypocritical tendencies. Ryan Preece said that the fine is too big presently, underlining how we are no longer in the early 2000s, which was a wealthy time. Noah Gragson was similarly shocked, simply stating his opinion, “That’s why you’ve never seen me throw a first punch.”

As the racing community rallied in support of Ricky Stenhouse Jr, the JTG driver felt honored. He told Frontstretch recently: “It’s cool to see Dale Earnhardt Jr., Elliott and 90% of the Cup field kind of feel the same way, and it seems to be about 95% of our fanbase that feels the same way. That’s nice to have all of them in our corner. I don’t know if that helps or not, that’s still 75 grand that I got to pay. But it does make you feel good that most of the people in the industry feel the same way.”

Although NASCAR is unlikely to tone down its financial punishment, Ricky Stenhouse Jr is at peace knowing his rivals are rooting for him.