Denny Hamlin stood up to boss Joe Gibbs after he was told not to appeal the Phoenix penalty

Denny Hamlin has made some enemies in the NASCAR community with his Action Detrimental podcast.

Denny Hamlin stood up to boss Joe Gibbs after he was told not to appeal the Phoenix penalty

Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs

Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin has prompted a big discussion on NASCAR’s penalty and what should be considered racing incidents among inconsistent decision-making. Hamlin sent his long-time rival Ross Chastain to the wall during the Phoenix cup race. He was penalized for breaking the code of conduct by the sanctioning body after he revealed that he intentionally tried to wreck the Trackhouse driver on his podcast.

Hamlin, after learning about the punishment, announced via his Twitter that he won’t appeal against it. But the next day, he revealed that he would appeal. In his podcast, he revealed to the NASCAR nation that JGR owner Joe Gibbs instructed him not to appeal and let the penalty slide. He agreed at first but later backtracked his decision.

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“I initially was not going to appeal this because my owner, Joe Gibbs, whom I love like family because we are family, called me and says, ‘Hey, this is obviously not ideal, but I’ve talked to sponsors, I talked to the team, we just want to let this go. We just want to move on. Everyone’s fine, but let’s just not drag it out and move on,” Denny Hamlin said.

Hamlin was first convinced that Gibbs was saying the right thing. He said, “I was like, fine. It’s not what I like, but I’ll do it because Dad’s telling me so, and I need to be a good teammate and someone that respects when my team owner asks me to do something,”. He informed the team that he would appeal the next day.

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Why did Denny Hamlin change his decision?

Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain
Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain

Hamlin slept on his decision, and in the morning, he was greeted with a NASCAR email explaining his wrongdoings. The No:11 driver was convinced that he didn’t do any of the things NASCAR claimed and called Joe Gibbs to discuss the things.

“So then I slept on it, and I woke up, and I got the email from NASCAR, the things that they said I did, and I called Joe back and said, ‘Joe, I didn’t do any of these things,” Hamlin said.

He convinced Gibbs that he was right and got the support to move on with the appeal. “He put me on speaker phone, and I explained to everyone, here’s what they say I did. This is not truthful. This is not right. And at the end of it, they just said, ‘We understand. If you want to appeal, then we support you.’ And so, here we are.”

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