Denny Hamlin Unbothered With Hate at NASCAR Home Track

The haters can boo all they want, but that will never affect Denny Hamlin. And that’s because he has embraced the role of NASCAR’s bad boy and, most importantly, he’s not ready to let go of it. Even when Hamlin walks into his home track at Richmond, the booing doesn’t stop. But the question is, doesn’t it bother the JGR icon even a bit to be disliked so much at a track where he had grown up racing?

The answer to that is, no, it doesn’t.

In a recent press conference, the #11 driver said, “I mean, just don’t mind it, I really don’t because it’s just noise.” Hamlin explained that a lot of it comes with success. If someone is a contender every week, they are bound to get more noise. “I’ve had so many altercations with the popular drivers and that just kind of fuels it as well,” he laughed.

Furthermore, Hamlin suggested that the hatred also comes with him being a Joe Gibbs Racing driver. “We’ve seen (a) previous driver (at) Joe Gibbs Racing,” he said. “He changes teams and all of a sudden he’s more liked.”

Certainly, it’s not difficult for a NASCAR fan to guess who he’s talking about.

Denny Hamlin spilled the beans on his ex-teammate

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were teammates for 15 years at Joe Gibbs Racing. However, Busch exited the Toyota team in 2022 when the latter couldn’t meet the current Richard Childress Racing driver’s demands. Apparently, it was because M&M’s quit NASCAR as a sponsor, but there was indeed another reason why Busch had to part ways with his previous team.

In an episode of Actions Detrimental, Hamlin said, “Even if I’m unbiased here, this was a tough situation where they wanted him back. That company would cease to exist if they had to pay Kyle what he was demanding, especially after losing Mars.”

“It would just be impossible. It would be a detriment to all the JGR teams if he had to say, ‘Alright, well you have to pay me this,’ which is what he said, ‘or else I’m leaving.’ They had to make a business decision to stay in business.”

Luckily for Busch, he has found his new team and, with that, a clean chit. Interestingly, Denny Hamlin revealed that Kyle Busch had to go through a pay cut to join RCR. So does that mean money was not the reason, after all?