Kevin Harvick: Karma struck Denny Hamlin for ‘horns down’ gesture at Texas Motor Speedway

Denny Hamlin made waves prior to the Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway over the weekend. The veteran wheelman threw out the infamous “Horns Down” gesture while being booed by fans on Sunday in the Lone Star State. 

According to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Hamlin received the loudest reception of the NASCAR drivers who were introduced ahead of the Cup Series race. Hate him or love him, people react to Hamlin, and he made sure to let the Texas Longhorns fans in attendance exactly what he thinks.

Hamlin wasn’t the only driver to throw the horns down gesture on Sunday either. Before the race, Riley Herbst said, “I walked out on stage and threw the horns down, and I never got more FUs in my life.” Of course, Herbst drives for Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team — it’s not hard to discern where he got the idea from.

Unfortunately for Hamlin, the reaction during introductions was the highlight of his afternoon in Texas. His engine caught fire and took him out of the race during Stage 1, and Kevin Harvick believes it was a bit of comeuppance for his pre-race gesture.

“I feel like sometimes the Karma train will run you over. In this particular situation, I think it did,” Harvick stated regarding Hamlin, via Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour. “But he loves to antagonize the crowd, which is his deal.

“That’s his deal. Hey, everybody needs to do something. Sometimes, you’ve got to live on the other side of it, when you have to deal with the circumstances.”

Harvick isn’t telling lies. Hamlin has become the heel of the NASCAR Cup Series, playing up his villainy to get a reaction from the crowd. In an interview with Motorsport.com in 2023, the three-time Daytona 500 winner talked about being NASCAR’s most polarizing driver. 

“I thought I was really just sort of a middle-of-the-road guy when it came to who fans liked or disliked,” Hamlin said. “You had like Joey Logano and the really popular drivers back in the day – Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – but as they retired, right, people wanted to root against someone.

“So, for a while it was Joey. But he hasn’t really had track stuff that’s really fueled it of late and I think I probably have. I’m just kind of the heel of right now.”

Perhaps the gesture had a bit of meaning to Hamlin, as well. It’s become synonymous in college football with fans using it against the Longhorns. During the 2024 season, Hamlin became a big fan of Ohio State, the team that beat Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinals in January.

Time will tell if Denny Hamlin brings the “Horns Down” out again any time soon, or if he finds another way to antagonize the crowd. Kevin Harvick just wants him to be mindful of what he puts out into the world, because the karma could come back tenfold — or in his case, eleven-fold.

— On3’s Brian Jones contributed to this article.