“Dirty Mo Up to Their Old Tricks!” NASCAR Breaks Silence on Denny Hamlin’s Bold Accusation Over Iowa Brake Drama

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin had a nightmare weekend emotionally at Iowa after defect brake pads forced his team to rethink their whole strategy for the race. Talking about it on his podcast, the veteran revealed NASCAR refused to allow them change the parts and threatened them with possibility to making up penalties to punish them if they refuse to follow the directive.

NASCAR vice president of racing communications, Mike Forde, addressed the comments made from their star driver in the latest episode of the Hauler Talk podcast. He called out Dirty Mo Media and Denny Hamlin over how the presented the topic. But later he admitted that the No:11 Camry driver did a fair job discussing the matter.

Yes, so they really leaned into this. Ol’ Dirty Mo up to their old tricks.  The title of the podcast was, ‘NASCAR was getting ready to create a new penalty for Denny Hamlin.’ And then their first clip out of it was that as well.  When I saw it, I was like, ‘Here we go, Denny back at his old games.’ And then I listened to the whole podcast, and I think Denny actually did a fair job. 

Mike Forde said on hi podcast.

He highlighted how the co-host of the Actions Detrimental podcast Jared Allen did good job by asking Denny Hamlin the right question while he was giving his side of the dramatic discussion they had in the Houler at Iowa. Later Forde couldn’t help himself but take a cheeky dig at the racer, mentioning their past debates, especially during the charter lawsuit drama in December.    

He told it from his side for sure, and props to Jared too.  He pushed him a bunch. My favorite part of the podcast was Denny’s like, ‘You’re looking at it through your Jared lens.’ And by that, he means, ‘You’re disagreeing with me, and I will not tolerate it.’  And Denny doesn’t like to be disagreed with. I don’t know if you guys have encountered that, but I did in December.

Mike Forde asserted via Hauler Talk.

He then directly addressed the claim about making up penalties and pointed out that it came out negative owing to perspective issue. Forde asserted that NASCAR has power impose discretionary penalties if the No:11 team go against the advice and changed their brake pads after the dramatic hauler meeting.

By creating a new penalty, that’s one way of looking at it if you want.  The other way of looking at it is, we have discretionary penalties in our toolbox. And that’s what we were referring to. So, when someone disobeys a NASCAR directive, and that’s what the No. 11 team would have done… Then we look back and say, ‘Okay, this is disobeying a NASCAR directive.’  And that is some language in the rule book. What that means is that it’s now a discretionary penalty.

Mike Forde added.

Mike Forde explains how severe the penalty would’ve been for Denny Hamlin

In the same conversation he also highlighted how severe the penalties would’ve been for Denny Hamlin, if the JGR team broke the law. He pointed out that the No:11 car would’ve been given something between a 3-lap penalty to a 20-lap penalty. Forde was happy the TRD team decide abide by the rule and grind out a solid top-5 finish.

It would have been much harsher than that, of course.  So, is that a 3-lap penalty, a 5-lap penalty, a 20-lap penalty, whatever it is?  So, we wouldn’t be creating one, but we would be using our discretion to put a penalty in place that we felt was appropriate for the actions that were taken, in this case, by the No. 11 team. That didn’t happen, thankfully…

Mike Forde said.

The NASCAR leadership was focussed on making everyone abide the law and make sure the rest of garage don’t turn on them, if Hamlin was given a pass. It would be interesting to see how the three times Daytona 500 champion is going to respond to the comments from the senior sport figure.

Also Read: “It’s Gonna Cost a Lot of Money!” Ross Chastain Urges NASCAR to Fasttrack Iowa Speedway Repave Project