Any form of sport hinges upon two basic cadences, teamwork, and competitiveness, and the world of NASCAR is no exception. Here, time and place define relations, friends become foes, and family becomes rivals in just a moment of time. There have been numerous instances in the longstanding history of NASCAR, to cite as an example.

There is no denying the fact, that it is ‘the survival of the fittest’ when it comes to thriving in the elite series of the sport. Once the helmet is buckled and the engines are revved up, relations take a back seat, and it is one man for oneself. Owing to this saying, the skirmish between Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson seems to be the burning incident, as Denny Hamlin delved deeper into retrospection in the latest episode of Actions Detrimental.

Denny Hamlin makes a jest out of the HMS driver’s ordeal

The second playoff race at Kansas assuredly began on a brighter note for Hendrick Motorsports. After clinching a victory in Darlington and securing his position for the next stage of playoffs, Kyle Larson continuing on the same momentum hoped to score the 300th victory for the team, but all faded into oblivion during the final pit stop of the race. 

Both Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott had been dominating factors on Sunday and held the possibility of notching another victory. However, the incident that transpired between the two drivers threw a spanner to their road to victory. The incident occurred when Larson tried to exit the pit road and found himself confined between Elliott and Brad Keselowski in a three-wide effort. In the process of evading the cars on either car, Larson scrapped the side of Elliott.

The incident infuriated Elliott and as a retaliation, drove up to the door of the No.5 car and also confronted him post-race. As a result, Denny Hamlin on his podcast seems to derive a sort of humor from the fiasco. He expressed, “I did, I actually find quite humor. Bob Pockrass’ tweet when he was asking Chase Elliott was like you know what message were you trying to send to Larson. After he left pit road when he slowed down what message, there was no message.”

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Hamlin also added, “What are you talking about Bob? Why are you asking me this question? But I found this super humorous, obviously if Chase is getting the bigger scope of it, he is gonna see that Larson kind of had no choice. The 6 car was coming out of his pit box, they were four wide, 2 and a half wide racing surface on the pit lane so, that kind of stuff happens often.”

“Chase was kind of super angry in the moment right, I am really not sure, its tougher for me to speculate on what Chase Elliott was thinking there. All he saw was his teammate turn right and end to the side of him. Certainly, he knew that was for no reason, but he was probably thinking like ‘Hey, if you are going to make contact do the other guy not your teammate. Let’s not avoid the 6 hit the 9.’ That’s probably what he was thinking.”

Kyle Larson comes clean on the Kansas feud

Both HMS drivers finished within the top 10 as Tyler Reddick surged to the front and punched his ticket to the next stage of the playoffs.

Nevertheless, commenting upon the confrontation between him and Elliott, Larson in his post-race interview shared, “From my vantage point, I knew we were three-wide leaving […] Obviously, I made contact with him [Elliott], but I felt like if I didn’t, I was going to clobber the six right in the right-front, and I thought the safest bet for all of us was for me to squeeze out a little bit.”

“I understand why he’s mad or was in the moment. I hope when he sees the replay, he understands that I didn’t have any space or not much, just inches.”

Read More: Denny Hamlin Prophesises Concerning Playoff Setback Towards End of Round 1

The incident was surely unforeseeable by both drivers. Nevertheless, with the season on its legs, it will be interesting to see how these two drivers perform and whether the rivalry brews stronger or if is everything forgotten and forgiven.