Denny Hamlin isn’t the most popular driver in NASCAR after the way in which he won at Pocono last weekend, but don’t tell him that.
The Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman caught a ton of flack for running Kyle Larson up into the wall on Sunday, and heard it from the crowd, with vicious booing taking place, the kind someone only Dominik Mysterio of the WWE can sympathize with.
However, Hamlin completed one of the best troll-jobs you’ll see on Twitter following the race. Check it out below, where the veteran driver thanked the Pocono fans for their love with a couple of photos for hard evidence.
“Thanks for the love Pocono. Lots of 11s out there,” tweeted Hamlin, referencing the double-birds he received during his burnout.
That’s a pretty masterful way to turn some visceral hate into a hilarious post. Even if you’re a fan of Larson’s and Hendrick Motorsports, you have to respect Hamlin’s Twitter game there.
Continuing, if the tweet wasn’t evidence enough, Hamlin elaborated on the fan’s perspective, believing them to be extremely biased against him.
“I got booed after I got wrecked at Martinsville,” Hamlin said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast Monday. “I got wrecked. There’s not subjectivity there. It’s not the fans are right because they’re booing. No, they just have a different lens because they’re fans. And if they’re fans of someone, or not fans of me, you’re gonna have a reaction.
“I mean, listen to it. Fans are loyal. And NASCAR fans are more loyal than any. I just take it with a grain of salt, like, the intros — I get booed the most by far in intros, and before the race, I haven’t done anything.”
Nevertheless, Hamlin became the most unpopular man in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, after he secured his 50th-career Cup Series victory. Still, the No. 11 wheelman continued to insist he didn’t make contact with Larson as he executed the pass late in the race.
“I still contest we did not touch,” Hamlin said. “I know it looks like it, but there’s not a ding on the car, not a scratch nowhere on the right side.
“So from where I was sitting on the left, I mean, I could not, if it was contact, I certainly didn’t feel it. It was so small that I certainly didn’t feel it in the car. I saw the flaps go up, which happens whenever you get some low pressure, I guess there’s high pressure underneath the hood, which happens when you do get close to each other.”
Regardless, Denny Hamlin won’t be getting cheered at the track for a long time, and some big time booing will continue moving forward, so he better be ready for it.
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