Denny Hamlin explains reason for ‘regrettable’ beef with SMI’s Marcus Smith

Denny Hamlin had a couple of fascinating moments over the last week, and one of them included a social media spat with Marcus Smith of SMI.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin took some time to elaborate on why it was such a passionate debate with him and Smith, and the No. 11 wheelman even regretted some of his choices during it.

“My beef, kind of with the SMI stuff, is actually the opposite beef that I would have with, you know, NASCAR,” Hamlin started. “I think that, while I don’t like necessarily, the chunk of the pie that they take from the teams, or what have you, or the chunk of the pie that they give to the teams, relative to who puts on the show. Nobody goes to a racetrack and watches you know, an empty racetrack. They go to watch the stars, the cars and the teams. Why I have a beef with that for certain and, you know, ISC which is NASCAR-owned tracks, and SMI, which is Smith-owned tracks, you kind, of share the schedule. I think it’s like 60/40. What I have said is that, at least ISC has reinvested the money that they’ve taken back into the tracks.

“You look at, you know, if you want to talk about the positives, you know, if you’ve been to a race at Richmond, Talladega, Daytona, Phoenix, Michigan, over the last 15 years, you’ve seen great upgrades to garages, hospitality areas, fan experience areas. It’s just they’ve — they’ve really done a good job. And then on top of that, all those tracks such as listed, also all got repaved in the last 15 years. They’ve just done an absolute phenomenal job. You can’t say anything but positive about it.” 

Many have come out and told Hamlin that he shouldn’t have come after Smith on social media, but it was just a combination of little things piling up, and past complaints falling on deaf ears, according to Hamlin himself.

“A lot of people said, ‘You know, this whole Marcus thing. Why don’t you, why didn’t you just say to him in person?’ I did. I went to lunch with Marcus. And so, when I tried to explain to him that, ‘Well, here’s why we have these struggles Marcus. Here’s our numbers,’ and when he asked me, ‘Well, what do you think we make?’ Well,  I can estimate. I said, ‘Well, why are you being so secretive about it?’ I don’t understand. Why can you be as transparent as what we’ve been, back to you guys and NASCAR, about our cost? Why is it all so secretive all the time? It’s secretive because it’s a big number,” Hamlin added. “They make a lot of money. And so, that’s where my frustration stems from. It’s why I got triggered.

“You know, when I when I saw that picture of Sonoma. Because I’m like, I’m no paving guy. Plenty of paving guys chimed in on what they saw. And all that was said was that they didn’t spend the money. They didn’t do it right. And so, why aren’t you investing in to do it right. You know, that was my problem with it, and it stems obviously from other stuff. So I definitely shouldn’t have chimed in, I guess. I don’t know. I mean, sometimes you need to get people talking about something, to get change. I don’t, I certainly regret  the personal stuff. For sure. But it’s, it’s just very agitating, as someone who has invested a lot of money in this sport over the last four years, to see how these three parties — NASCAR, the tracks, and the teams. How, it’s just frustrating to see, how it’s all run.” 

While Denny Hamlin may regret the interaction, he believes it could help spur some positive change in the future. Time will tell if he’s right, or if Hamlin’s mini-rivalry with Marcus Smith will continue into the future.