Dale Earnhardt Jr. takes issue with major aspect of Denny Hamlin racing Bubba Wallace for win at Kansas

The end of NASCAR's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas was a thriller, with Denny Hamlin battling Bubba Wallace for the lead and Chase Elliott stealing the win at the last second. Much has been made over the contact Hamlin made with Wallace, which cost both the shot at the win.

For Hamlin, he had to weigh going for the win for Joe Gibbs Racing with his co-ownership of 23XI. In the end, he went for the win, putting aside any other loyalties.

“I like Denny going for it. I think he could have done it differently to not let someone else win,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on the Dale Jr. Download. “I like Denny going for it. I like Denny going for it, but I think he just sent it a little bit too hard.

“Putting the 23 in the wall, even though Denny gives him a car length and a half, Denny knows how the aero works. I don’t know truly if the 23 getting into the wall is all Denny or a little bit of both of them being just… I think Bubba gets to that point and goes ‘sh*t, this is, we’re f*cked’ and maybe he does hammer the gas.”

Wallace didn’t seem happy about things in the moment after the race. He drove by Hamlin and flipped him off, for one.

With the benefit of hindsight, would Denny Hamlin have done something differently? Earnhardt believes so.

“I think that in the moment it was maybe hard for Denny to admit,” Earnhardt said. “But I bet you Thursday or Friday or even Sunday morning at the Roval, would he privately trade you a 23 victory for the obvious end result here? I think he would.”

Earnhardt stuck to the line that Denny Hamlin could have done things differently. There were ways to go for the win without shipping Wallace up the track into the wall, though perhaps not the most optimal paths to a victory.

“I like him going for it, man, but I think he could have done it a little differently and still been able to get out of the car and look at his crew and go, ‘Hey, I went for it without wrecking both of us,'” Earnhardt said. “‘I went for it without taking either of us. I went for it yet still gave us and the 23 or the 23 a shot and not letting a Chevrolet go through and win the race.'”