Toyota Titans Denny Hamlin & Bubba Wallace Refuse to Call Out John Hunter Nemechek Despite “Poetic” Calamity

Tyler Reddick‘s win marked 23XI Racing as the fourth team to have a victory this season. It could have been a Toyota-dominated podium, but a wreck in the final stage messed things up. Although Ford was in the lead for most of the race, Toyota took over before a crash involving Bubba Wallace, Eric Jones, John Hunter Nemechek, and Denny Hamlin dashed their chances for a sweep. However, post-race, neither Hamlin nor Wallace pointed fingers or named names about the wreck.

Denny Hamlin was unsure of what happened towards the end

Denny Hamlin was left scratching his head after a late race mishap knocked him and his 23XI Racing driver, Bubba Wallace, out of contention with just 33 laps left at Talladega. Asked if he knew what went wrong or could’ve done something differently, Hamlin’s straight answer was, “I am not sure.” He added, “I didn’t. I just saw the 43 get turned and I got turned. So I’m really not sure which one happened first, but… Yeah, I’m not really sure. Obviously, there was a bad push towards the front. And it wiped us all out, so it’s just poetic. Thanks, it’s all I got. Sorry.”

Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace, driving for 23XI Racing, reflected on the chaos too, saying, “No, just we were all pushing really hard to keep our line going. We had a plan and didn’t execute as well as we should. So, hated for our team. Look forward to running these places and then you just get trapped in somebody else’s mask but I hate it. It doesn’t make us look good at all. But… We’ll just reset and go to Dover real long way to go. We’re fine. Just frustrating.”

The drama actually started on Lap 157 of Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Tyler Reddick was at the front of a pack that included Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace, and John Hunter Nemechek when, as they roared into Turn 3, things went south. After seven Toyota cars made an early final-stage pit stop in a bold move to push hard to the finish, Erik Jones in the #43 car wobbled, causing a check-up. Jones got clipped by Wallace, triggering a four-car pileup. Initially, it seemed the chaos began when Nemechek bumped into Wallace just before the turn.

Both 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin took heavy hits in the wreck, knocking them out of the race. Meanwhile, Jones, Wallace, and Hamlin all got checked out at the infield care center and were okay to leave, but Nemechek continued in the race, albeit several laps down.

But the wreck wasn’t the only setback for Toyota at Talladega. The crash also dinged their standings in the driver points, leaving them scrambling to regain ground.

After the Talladega shake-up, both tumbled in the standings

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Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace were riding high at P3 and P9 with 307 and 256 points, respectively, before the GEICO 500 race at Talladega Superspeedway. But that crash threw a wrench in their plans. Hamlin dropped to P6, barely inching up to 308 points, and Wallace fell to P11, nudging up to 257 points. Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace’s teammate and the victor at Talladega, Tyler Reddick, who was previously at P8 with 269 points, climbed three spots to crack into the top-5 at P5 with 316 points—edging out his boss Hamlin.

Despite his own rough day, Hamlin couldn’t help but beam over his team’s success. He shared, “Every 23XI win is like watching your kid win. It always means a little bit more when they do it than when you do it. Certainly, the day was disastrous for us and I’m sitting over there by the tunnel just waiting to head to the airport and the TV is a little bit behind so I’m sitting there [looking around] I can’t figure out who had won until they came back around.”

Well, it’s a bit rare to see Hamlin this much in owner mode rather than his usual competitive driver mode. What’s your take on this?