KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Cooler heads have prevailed inside Joe Gibbs Racing following last week’s run-in between teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs, who Hamlin wrecked when Gibbs wouldn’t get out of his way at New Hampshire.
Hamlin is in the playoffs and racing for his elusive first Cup Series championship, while Gibbs, grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, is not eligible to race for the title. After the two had on-track contact, Hamlin asked on his team radio if the organization was too scared to give the 22-year-old team orders.
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Hamlin said Saturday, a day before the middle race at Kansas Speedway in the round of 12, that all sides had an opportunity to speak their mind in this week’s competition meeting. The three-time Daytona 500 champion declined to elaborate other than admitting that by moving Gibbs out of his way, “I definitely got too hot under the collar and it went too far on my end.”
“There are things I should have done differently,” he said.
JGR teammate Christopher Bell said the message was clear and didn’t even need to be spoken as to how the Toyota drivers should be racing each other at this time of the year. There are six races remaining to crown the Cup champion.
“We shouldn’t wreck each other. That was very clear and blatantly wrong and hopefully doesn’t happen again,” Bell said. “I think it already was clear to us before and we just need to respect each other.”
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But Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson, who has three of his four teammates still in the 12-driver field, said Gibbs was racing a title contender who happens to be his teammate far too hard at too early a point of last week’s race.
“I think at the end — if you’re racing for a win, you’re racing for a win,” Larson said. “You’re never going to give up a win in a Cup Series for a teammate. But I think if you’re running mid-pack in a stage, yeah, that expectation should be followed.”
Larson also said that the expectations of how Hendrick drivers should race each other is clearly defined and evidenced on track every week.
“I think you’re always just looking out for what you can do to make things a little bit easier on your teammates,” he said. “TV probably doesn’t even see the teamwork that happens, but like last week, Alex (Bowman) cut me a lot of breaks at the end of the first stage. I passed him, and then I was starting to die.
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“He could have easily passed me back but kind of just rode back there. So it’s just little things like that where I think where Denny was probably expecting that, as every team who has multiple cars, has had a conversation of those expectations. So I could see Denny’s frustration, for sure. I’m sure they had a lot of talks this week, so I would expect it to be much better.”
Race director gone
NASCAR has confirmed it has parted ways with race director Jusan Hamilton with six races remaining in the season. He is no longer listed as an employee at NASCAR, where his official title was managing director for competition operations.
Hamilton first joined NASCAR as an intern in 2012 and returned in 2016 under various roles. He oversaw NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, pit crew development, the pro iRacing NASCAR divisions, as well as race director.
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Hamilton was also instrumental in setting both the annual schedule and the schedule for each race weekend. His first event as race director was in 2018 at Pocono Raceway. In 2022, Hamilton became the first Black race director to officiate the Daytona 500.
Childers hired
Rodney Childers, who guided Kevin Harvick to the 2014 Cup Series championship, has finally landed a new job after he was let go as crew chief at Spire Motorsports in April.
Childers were be crew chief at JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series for the No. 1 Chevrolet, which will be split between Carson Kvapil and Connor Zilisch. It will be Childers’ first time as an Xfinity Series crew chief.
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“Rodney’s resume and career speak for themselves,” said Dale Earnhardt Jr., co-owner of JR Motorsports. “Rodney and I grew up together and have known each other since we were kids. That’s a relationship that has always been close, and has remained close to this day. We’ve always had interest in working together in motorsports, and I’m thankful that this opportunity came about and we could bring him into the JRM family.”
Childers worked with Justin Haley at Spire but the team parted ways with him when both driver and crew chief said the relationship wasn’t working. Childers won 40 races and a Cup title at Stewart-Haas Racing with Harvick. He worked with Josh Berry in 2024 when Harvick retired. That was the final year Stewart-Haas Racing existed.
Odds and Ends
Larson is the BetMGM favorite at +375. … The driver who led the most laps won just once in the last six Kansas races and that was Larson earlier this year when he led 221 laps. … Larson is the only repeat winner in the last 10 races at Kansas. He has three wins, including his May victory. … The winner of the fall Kansas race has gone on to win the championship four times, but only twice since the elimination era — Martin Truex Jr. in 2017 and Larson in 2021. … Kansas has never produced a first-time Cup winner in its previous 39 races, more races than any other track currently on the schedule.
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