Ty Dillon raised more than a few eyebrows on Saturday following the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway when he opted to troll veteran driver Denny Hamlin. It wasn’t all that subtle.
Dillon quipped “For all you Denny fans out there, I just knocked your favorite driver out,” a riff on Hamlin’s now-famous catch phrase after he wins a race over other favorites. Hamlin took the Dillon troll in stride.
On Wednesday, Ty Dillon opened up on the moment and what he views as cutting loose a little bit. He wants to express his personality.
“I have appreciated his Denny vs. the World he’s been on here the last year and a half,” Dillon said on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. “Denny gets it as far as he’s been around long enough. A lot of drivers at times get so focused on themselves and their result and honed into such a small portion of what makes this whole sport go around.
“We forget that we’re entertainers. And I think Denny has now gotten comfortable with himself and in his life that where he is successful on track and able to have fun with the fans, not take himself too serious, and lean into the villain role a little bit. I love that.”
For Ty Dillon, the result on Saturday was a good enough reason to talk a little smack. He was paired up with Hamlin for NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge. Hamlin was the No. 1 overall seed.
And while Hamlin ran into trouble all on his own — he wrecked in the massive pileup that caught 23 drivers — Dillon’s performance was admirable. He finished a season-best eighth at Atlanta. He took down Hamlin and moved onto Round 2.
“Luckily we’re starting to run good enough to where we’re getting an opportunity to kind of show my personality a little bit and kind of have fun with Denny as well,” Dillon said. “But if it wasn’t for him leaning into his fans, that comment doesn’t do anything for anybody.”
Both drivers have made it abundantly clear they’re not upset with each other. The whole thing has been a good kick for the fans, who have been able to go back and forth a little bit.
For his part, Ty Dillon simply hopes to keep putting together good runs. That will allow him to lean even more into his personality.
“Hopefully for us we continue to run well where our team and myself can continue to show our personality week in and week out and have a little fun in this thing,” Dillon said. “I think we sometimes forget that this is a fun, entertainment sport. Yeah, I think just all in all it was cool and love his response, that he understood where I was coming from and we both got to have some fun with it.”
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