Picture this. It’s the year 2000 and NASCAR is back for another exciting race at Talladega. The Intimidator, Dale Earnhardt Sr., sits outside the top 10 in 20th place. It looks like he won’t win, but destiny has something different in store. In a mad dash in the last four laps, Earnhardt Sr. springs from 18th place to win the race. The race remains iconic even today, and just cements the Earnhardt family’s statues on superspeedways. So when Denny Hamlin made a jaw-dropping claim about their superspeedway skills, fans were outraged.

Earnhardt fans rallied to social media to bash the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, as Dale Sr. was a drafting expert. However, Hamlin tried to appease the public by carefully rephrasing his words.

Denny Hamlin tries to cover up his blunder

Now, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Junior were no slouches when it came to their superspeedway record. While Dale Earnhardt had 13 out of his 76 Cup Series wins at superspeedways, Junior had 10 of his 26 victories at the high-speed tracks. Despite this, in a recent ‘Actions Detrimental’ episode, Denny Hamlin took a huge risk. He uttered words that can enrage any NASCAR fan: “Dale Jr. and Dale Earnhardt would have never survived in today’s superspeedway racing.”

These words sparked a huge debate online, and the Denny haters became active. However, Hamlin referred to today’s racing. Cars run extremely slowly in the first two-thirds of any superspeedway race all to save fuel. Then the car’s drag kills the momentum when drivers want to race it out towards the end.

This wildly contrasts the type of racing that Dale Sr. and Dale Jr. did earlier, making swift paces and drafting with whomever they wanted. So, Denny Hamlin clarified his stance on X after the huge storm broke out against his unintentional comments. “I’m basically saying they would HATE today’s style of drafting and would not be as successful as they were.” Part of Hamlin’s narrative was related to the manufacturers’ control.

The OEMs want drivers to stick to fellow Ford, Toyota, or Chevy users. That is why Parker Retzlaff was criticized when he pushed Ford driver Harrison Burton instead of fellow Chevy racer Kyle Busch at Daytona. Additionally, fans cannot forget the absence of tandem drafting every since Kyle Larson’s took off into the air back in 2014.

Denny Hamlin’s statement did not entirely run amiss of its true meaning. A certain fan wanted to bash Hamlin for his opinion on the Earnhardts, but the comment ended up backfiring. “Jesus Hamlin is either ridiculously stupid or has severe memory loss. Jr’s best drafting partner was Stewart who raced for JGR. Jr didn’t care who he raced with if it meant getting to the front…” they wrote. However, another fan came to Hamlin’s rescue: “That is his point.. he is saying that the way Jr. drafted doesn’t exist anymore.” Hamlin sighed in relief: “Exactly.”

Even Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently had qualms about Denny Hamlin’s racing. The Bowman Gray Clash did not impress the veteran so much.

Pushing him to go the extra mile

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We all know how the Cook Out Clash turned out. Rowdy fans hyped up the atmosphere while the 0.25-mile short track caused a slew of wrecks. Amidst the chaos, though, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott maintained a cool composure. Elliott led for the first 96 laps, and the Hamlin took over for the next 28. After Elliott again jumped back to the front on lap 127 and Ryan Blaney subsequently toppled Hamlin, the JGR driver did not react harshly. He went against the usual chaotic racing that Bowman Gray usually produces. This clean racing enthralled ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’ host Tommy Baldwin Jr.

However, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was eager to see some feisty racing. He criticized Denny Hamlin for not exercising a “killer instinct” to regain his lead from Elliott. “Chase kind of leaned on [Hamlin] a little bit, and then Denny just fell in behind him,” the two-time Daytona 500 winner said on his ‘Dale Jr Download’ podcast. “Next corner, never f—— touched him. I’m like ‘What are we doing?’ That’s not what anybody that bought a [expletive] ticket to the place wanted. That to me is nothing we can really do about. We can’t really fix that.”

Both Hamlin and Dale Jr. freely spoke about each other’s racing styles. However, fans took Denny Hamlin’s statement to heart – until the latter clarified his notions.