Denny Hamlin just wants some intellectual honesty from NASCAR officials.
The Cup Series veteran took to his weekly podcast on Monday and spoke about the disconnect between the sanctioning body and fans, speaking specifically about messaging from vice president of competition Elton Sawyer and how it effectively gaslights fans.
Sawyer went on SiriusXM Radio last week and said he didn’t understand why fans were dissatisfied with the racing at Talladega because a near majority of it was run under extreme fuel conservation.
Hamlin wasn’t impressed.
“When you had Elton go on last week talking about Superspeedway racing and say, ‘I don’t understand. What do we have to fix?’ Look at the stats that we got for this week. We had 67 lead changes,’ and whatever else, I think you lose some credibility with the fans,” Hamlin said. “I think the fans have a low morale right now due to their lack of faith in the competition leadership.
“I think it’s a tough position they’re in, but I think that they should just probably cancel the whole coming on the radio. I know why they’re doing it, I know why NASCAR comes on every Tuesday morning and says, ‘Let me tell you why we did this and why we did that.’ I appreciate that transparency from them. But when you go in there and you kind of brush off what every driver said and has said for quite some time with the superspeedway package, go back three years’ worth of podcast. I’ve said we’ve got a superspeedway problem and we’ve kept ignoring it. I just think that NASCAR created its own stats to make itself look good.”
This is the continuation of a feud of sorts between Hamlin and NASCAR competition officials, with the driver siding with jaded fans, and NASCAR insisting that the racing product is largely normal or within expectations.
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