Denny Hamlin enjoys playing the villain and antagonizing fans. He’s openly admitted that on numerous occasions. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has even said talking [expletive] is his super power.
On Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, the 44-year-old had a day he’d just as soon forget. It started during the first caution in the first stage when there was confusion with his team on the radio on when he was supposed to pit.
“Yeah, just miscommunication,” the driver said. “Myself and the team, they gave me a code. It was way too close to another code and I thought it was to stay out and so we decided we had to come back in and put gas in it.
“Didn't really matter anyway, I guess the way it all turned out. But yeah, just a miscommunication between the two of us.”
Unfortunately, for the No. 11 driver, that was the first issue of the day. The second one came at the end of the stage and was considerably worse and more serious as his car went up in flames and smoke filled the cockpit, which resulted in the driver losing control briefly and sliding down the track. Moments later, he safely exited the car.
After a trip to the infield care center, he visited with reporters and explained what happened.
“Yeah, it just blew up,” he said. "Don't really know how, what or why and it'll take a few weeks, but they'll kind of look at it and see what happened.”
Hamlin said there was no warning but then responded when asked if flames had breached the cockpit.
“It was starting to come up there at the very end on the right front as I was getting out,” he recalled. “But nothing for a while.”
Unsurprisingly, when he exited his smoke-filled car on the track, many fans cheered knowing that the villain’s day was done. Most of those same fans were booing the three-time Daytona 500 winner an hour before during driver intros when he came out onto the stage.
Interestingly, the driver did something unexpected that drew a mixed response, when he flashed the “Horns down” hand gesture, which is the opposite of the traditional “Hook ‘Em Horns” sign University of Texas fans show in support of their team.
While the driver received the most boos on stage, that disrespectful gesture also produced some cheers. That’s due to geography and the race track being located just a little more than an hour away from the Texas-Oklahoma border. In other words, the TMS track is the home track to many Sooner fans and they let it be known when Hamlin flashed his sign on the stage.
However, on Monday, with time to reflect on his gesture and his last-place finish and worst race of the 2025 campaign, the JGR driver posted an update on Instagram showing a photo of his hand signal.
"Don’t mess with Texas I guess," he wrote.
More must-reads: