NASCAR insiders speculate on JGR competition meeting, fallout after Denny Hamlin-Ty Gibbs New Hampshire drama

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs were involved in an on-track incident at New Hampshire last weekend, and it could make things interesting when the two compete at Kansas on Sunday. But how did things go between the two at the JGR competition meeting that happened on Monday?

On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic talked about Hamlin and Diggs to start the show. Bianchi asked Gluck how much money he would pay to be a fly on the wall for the meeting.

“Not as much as I originally thought before doing the post-race interviews,” Gluck said. “I think this is something they can sort of sort through. I don’t think this is the type of thing that lingers necessarily. We talked to Denny Hamlin, who says, ‘Hey, listen, I didn’t do it on purpose.’

NASCAR insider shares more on the Denny Hamlin-Ty Gibbs incident

“He says that he was trying to obviously move him out of the way, it sounds like. But to spin his teammate on purpose, Denny Hamlin says, ‘No, that’s not the case.’ He said, ‘I certainly did not want to spin out certainly a teammate. I was trying to get space to race, and trying to get by the 54 (Gibbs).’ Could he have been more patient? Obviously. Could Ty Gibbs have given more room there? Obviously.”

Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs contact each other during Lap 110 at New Hampshire, which led to Gibbs being spun out and not finishing the race. During the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin talked about what led to the contact.

“We were racing really too hard,” Hamin said. “I know this is going to trigger some people about, ‘Oh, racing hard.’ When you’re racing a teammate — A, a teammate, and B, a teammate with nothing to gain — I agree that everyone should race to win the race. However, we’re not racing to win the race. We’re racing, at the time, for 11th place. …We’re all (the playoff drivers) battling and scratching and clawing to try to get some stage points, which is going to be life or death for us. It’s our air that we need to move on.”

Denny Hamlin is one of the 12 drivers in the playoffs and is looking to win his first Cup Series championship. Gibbs is in his third season as a full-time Cup driver and is seeking his first win in the series.