Denny Hamlin recalls paying off bet with Kyle Busch in pennies

Denny Hamlin reflected on paying Kyle Busch in pennies after losing a bet. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin asked Busch if he paid him in pennies, which led to them revealing the one thing they both remembered about the coins.

“Those were dirty pennies, too,” Denny Hamlin said. Kyle Busch also agreed with Hamlin, but then he explained why it wasn’t completely awful.

“It stunk so bad,” Busch stated. “The greatest thing that happened of that for the photo of it and everything all being great, we come back to the room and it’s like, ‘What is that smell?'”

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch spent a lot of time together at Joe Gibbs Racing

“You don’t recognize when you’re holding just a couple pennies, but you put a bucket of them, it’s bad,” Hamlin said. Busch then explained why he didn’t mind the pennies smelling bad.

“It’s a good damn thing we didn’t have to stay in that room that night,” Busch said. We literally went back to the hotel to change our clothes and go to the airplane.”

This happened when Hamlin and Busch were teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin has spent his entire NASCAR career with Joe Gibbs, and Busch was with the team from 2008 to 2022. Busch and Hamlin are two of the most successful drivers in NASCAR history, as they have won a combined 119 NASCAR Cup Series races.

After the 2022 season, Busch joined Richard Childress Racing. “The addition of Kyle Busch to the Richard Childress Racing lineup is significant, not only for our organization, but for the sport as a whole,” Richard Childress said in a team release in September 2022. “Kyle is a proven contender at the highest levels of the sport, and I believe that his experience and dedication to motorsports will elevate our race program across the board. I’ve always admired Kyle’s driving style and his ability to win and race for championships ever since he entered the sport. Who wouldn’t want a proven NASCAR Cup Series champion driving their car?”

When the signing of Busch was announced, Hamlin applauded Richard Childress Racing for making the move. “The way they responded was to get a 60-time winner and two-time champion to fill that seat,” Hamlin said about Busch taking over for Tyler Reddick, who joined Hamlin’s 23XI Racing in 2023, per ESPN. “They probably got with their manufacturers and said, ‘How can we make this happen?’ and they responded, and I think they responded well.”