“He’s the King”: Bubba Wallace Insider Crowns Another Jewel on Boss Denny Hamlin’s ‘Villain’ Persona

Is there a more hated NASCAR driver than Denny Hamlin right now? Probably not. Known for his outspoken behavior, he doesn’t pull any punches while sharing his honest opinions on a range of topics. Be it calling out NASCAR on their sub-par racing packages, to riling up fans with his ‘I beat your favorite driver’ tagline.

But, Freddie Kraft, the spotter for #23, isn’t also one to shy away from sparking controversies. He has run into some sticky situations with his comments on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. However, even he feels that Hamlin from the JGR camp is the true master of trash-talking. As he conveyed, Hamlin has perfected the role of NASCAR’s villain, thanks to his unapologetic persona.

Denny Hamlin keeps on delivering heavy blows to his haters

Unfortunately for his fans, Hamlin has decided to refrain from using his signature one-liner after his race wins. Ever since he’s done that, it’s not that he hasn’t achieved success. Out of 11 starts this season, the veteran driver has bagged three wins. And yet, at most of the venues, he is treated with boos and jeers during the driver intros. But he often finds ways to get back at the trolls with his victories and his gesture of number 1 towards the grandstands.

It’s fair to say that most drivers in the current era are reserved and do not express themselves enough. Therefore, when it came to picking the best trash talkers during the DJD Reloaded podcast, Kraft did not hesitate in naming Hamlin. “Yeah, it’s like I say every week on DBC. Denny’s great, and he’s the king of it right now. He’s feeding into that villain role of where he’s just not really trash-talking other drivers per say. He’s doing a really good job of kind of trolling the fans and then maybe trolling the other drivers.”

One of the easiest ways to know who’s on for the driver’s intros is to pay attention to boos and jeers. Which are usually the loudest when Hamlin comes on. Kraft hence added, “The reaction, the boos. You never have to question who comes out of a driver’s intros sometimes it’s because you hear the crowd erupt. Yeah, that’s Denny for sure. I think he’s the king of it right now. I think he feeds into it; that’s why he’s good at it”. 

And well, the JGR driver was again surrounded by controversy after the Dover win. The issue this time around was the use of aero-blocking techniques.

Hamlin believes aero-blocking is here to stay

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One of the easiest ways for a NASCAR driver to keep hold of their lead is to roll out with defensive tactics. Now there are plenty of ways to go about it, but aero-blocking has just been the norm ever since the Next Gen car came into play. What it essentially does is cut the trailing car off clean air as the lead car comes to block the charge.

This is what transpired during the late laps in Dover, where Hamlin was hanging on the lead and decided to launch defensive maneuvers with the aero-blocking. Fans and experts online called out this questionable tactic used by the JGR driver. But this certainly wasn’t the first instance where drivers have resorted to the use of aero-blocking. Chase Elliott’s win at Texas was an example of the same.

Reacting to the whole chaos, Denny Hamlin explained his stance on the pressing issue. “You’re not going to keep people from doing what they know is the best way for them to win or protect their position. So it will not go away, no matter what… I think that you’ve got to have a bigger variance in the speeds of cars. That’s the only way we’re going to get rid of this in the long run.”

With the Kansas race weekend lined up, Hamlin and Larson will once again lock horns in their attempts to further improve their season’s strong run. The HMS star, despite a runner-up finish last weekend, is holding the top spot in the standings, while the JGR star jumped to the fourth spot with his win.