If Kyle Petty wasn’t in the Peacock Pit Box, he might have been booing Denny Hamlin along with the thousands of fans at Pocono. Hamlin put a hard move on Kyle Larson on the second-to-last restart. It put Larson into the fence, much like Hamlin did to Chastain in 2022. Fans and the folks in the NASCAR NBC booth did not like what they saw.
There was a lot for Denny Hamlin to compete for in this race. He got his Pocono win taken from his last season. This was a record-breaking seventh Pocono win, his 50th win overall in the Cup Series, and win 600 for JGR in the three NASCAR national series.
Kyle Petty did not appreciate the win.
“Denny can’t be the victim,” Petty said after the race. “We played his radio, he was the victim, he puts himself in the victim position. You’re not the victim here Denny Hamlin. And when I looked at this one and we heard what Kyle Larson said, he said, ‘Denny’s always right, all his buddies know it.’ And he laughed about it. Because he knows Denny’s not going to apologize for this. It was a great race. I enjoyed every lap, I loved the strategy, I loved everything about it. The ending? I don’t appreciate. I don’t appreciate. Even 50 wins, what he’s done I don’t apprecaite that because we saw this same move last year and that’s just my opinion.”
Petty would continue his tirade against Denny Hamlin before the end of the broadcast.
“No, he’s not going to that’s not Denny. Listen, he’s not going to, I’m not even going to go down that highway with you because that’s not Denny Hamlin’s personality. Kyle Larson said it, Denny’s always right. People that are always right don’t have remorse, they just go ahead and live their life in their world. And that’s what Denny does. And that’s fine, because he is an incredible race car driver. He is able to take that and put it somewhere, and t’s win at all cost and we saw that here.”
Denny Hamlin puts Kyle Larson in the wall
Regardless of what Denny Hamlin said on his radio, he made contact with Larson on that restart. You can argue that Larson has the chance to slow up and get out of the gas. However, that still wouldn’t have guaranteed he wouldn’t hit the wall. Larson didn’t hold back on the track or after the race in his interview.
It has to be incredibly frustrating for Larson. He had a hard racing incident with Hamlin at Kansas which resulted in a win for the No. 11. This time, things were a little more explicit and not as clean of a move as that Kansas race.
It is a shame, or maybe it makes it even better, that this happened. This was a race that kept you on the edge of your seat. You didn’t know when the caution would fly and let drivers on the off-strategy take the lead.
Denny Hamlin kept at it, was in the right place to make the move he made, and after the restart, he drove away with the win. This is the second win of the season for Hamlin and his team. Next time the 5 and 11 are next to each other, we better keep our eyes out. It’s bound to create tension.
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