KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Joe Gibbs Racing personnel met this week to sort through last weekend’s intra-team dust-up between Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs. Those conversations were fruitful, Hamlin said, though he and the rest of the organization were tight-lipped about the full context.
“Yeah, I think they’re in a good place,” Hamlin said about where the team left things after racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “You know, we had some meetings this week. I thought they were all productive meetings, but the guts of that are obviously going to need to be confidential.”
The talk of the NASCAR Cup Series garage continued into Saturday’s prep day at Kansas Speedway, site of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), the middle race in the playoffs’ Round of 12. The event provides an opportunity for the remaining dozen postseason hopefuls to build their momentum, but it’s also a moment for the JGR group that swept the playoffs’ opening round to reset and change the narrative.
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At New Hampshire, when playoff-eligible Hamlin initiated contact with Gibbs, who did not make the postseason field, debate raged about whether teammates on opposite ends of the playoff picture should contest spots amongst themselves with more consideration. Hamlin indicated in his podcast this week that he hoped team management would intercede to reach some resolution for on-track conduct. Now it’s a matter, JGR team management said, of carrying out what was discussed — this weekend and in the postseason weeks ahead.
“It was just what I said last week,” said Chris Gabehart, JGR’s competition director. “Every now and then when you compete towards the front at a high level, you’ve got to go over these things and understand that everybody’s racing for something, and everybody’s got to be heard, and then we’ve got to try to come to a resolution on ‘how do we how do we race moving forward?’ And that’s exactly what happened. I mean, I’m not going to get into any of the details, and frankly, actions speak louder than words, right? That’s true of anyone in here, not just JGR drivers. So, got to focus on Kansas and know that we did our part this week, and everybody said their piece, and we’ll move on from there.”
Gibbs’ abbreviated attempt to comment on the matter Saturday was cut off after Cup Series qualifying, when he was whisked away by a waiting golf cart. In this week’s closed-door meetings, Hamlin said, each of the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers could weigh in. “All the drivers had an opportunity to speak and try to come up with a plan,” Hamlin said, “and I think we did our best to come up with one. That’s it. That’s all I have.”
JGR’s Christopher Bell had at least indirect involvement in the Hamlin-Gibbs skirmish, as he had to take evasive action in his No. 20 Toyota to avoid the wreck of Gibbs’ No. 54 against the outer retaining wall. Bell said he had a premonition that contact between the two was pending, so he eased up on the throttle on corner entry, then swept low as he flew blind through the smoke.
“I think it’s definitely fair to say that a line was crossed and that was bad,” said Bell, who was the top JGR finisher in sixth place last week at New Hampshire. “We don’t need to get any teammates wrecked. Hopefully we do better moving forward, and I think that’s the goal for us to race each other better moving forward.”
Crossing the line? A regretful Hamlin didn’t disagree.
“I mean, certainly, absolutely. I think that I definitely got hotter under the collar,” Hamlin said. “It went too far on my end, and certainly there’s things that I wish I could have done a little differently.”
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