Denny Hamlin paints picture for mid-race in-car tweet at Atlanta: ‘My ass hurt’

Denny Hamlin‘s No. 11 team spent a lot of time working on his car during this past Saturday’s race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. Hamlin was one of 23 drivers involved in the Lap 69 “Big One,” resulting in his team needing to make repairs in the garage.

Through the duration of repairs, Hamlin was not allowed to get out of the car. Hamlin had to sit there, and he chose to pass the time by watching the race on his phone. Hamlin even fired off an in-car tweet. The entire time, however, Hamlin was in his pain. He revealed on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that his keister wasn’t doing so well now that he didn’t have racing to distract him.

“I told Tyler, ‘Grab me my phone.’ He grabbed me my phone because I wanted to watch the race and then I went on social media to see what was up, whether they were blaming me for the wreck or not. I needed to see a few replays and I was like, ‘Maybe. Maybe.’ … My ass hurt. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable my ass gets when I don’t have racing to distract me,” Hamlin said. “I’m just sitting in the car, strapped in a seat. It’s fairly comfortable. I’ve gotten some of the best snoozes ever in a driver’s seat. Think about a baby being swaddled. … It’s good and it’s warm.

“It’s fine, but the bottom of the seat is hard and it’s right on my butt bone. I realized when I got out, I was like, ‘Dang, man.’ When you don’t have the racing to distract you, it’s more uncomfortable than I thought. I never loosened up nothing. Didn’t wanna give NASCAR any excuse to knock me out of this race.”

Denny Hamlin reacts to Ty Dillon upsetting him in NASCAR bracket, epic post-race troll

Hamlin returned to the race 109 laps down and ran some laps to pick up points before exiting for good. He officially finished 31st. Hamlin, the No. 1 overall seed in the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge, was upset by No. 32 seed Ty Dillon.

After the race, Dillon had a message for Hamlin and his fanbase: “For all you Denny fans out there, I just knocked your favorite driver out.” Hamlin got a kick out of it. He implored fans to let Dillon have his moment, congratulating the Kaulig Racing driver on beating him.

“I see people giving Ty Dillon a lot of flak… give him his moment, people. He beat me,” Hamlin said. “… He was ahead of me the whole f*cking race. I was 33rd until we crashed. Just let him have his moment. He texted me — he was like, ‘Hey, I was just playing around.’ I loved it. If you people think that you are going to hurt my feelings by coming in my mentions and saying, ‘Haha, Ty Dilon beat you,’ like, you’re never going to make fun of me more than I’m going to make fun of myself. You’re not going to offend me. I have really thick skin.

“You open yourself up and when you do that, the moments you fail, they’re going to give it to you. But you’ve got to be a big boy and take it. I am going to take it from Ty Dillon.”