How the Perception of Bias in NASCAR Could Be Real Amid Constant Officiating Discrepancies

Sport always requires free and fair officiating but Denny Hamlin recently cast doubt over NASCAR being unbiased on his podcast. It’s not because he is fighting a lawsuit against them at the moment and he had definitive proof to prove his theory.

There were a couple of instances from the race at Talladega that drew the Joe Gibbs Racing star’s attention. One of them involved the race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

As per Hamlin, Stenhouse had a big hole in his left-side door which had some door foam missing as well. As per section 3337, the energy-absorbing foam blocks have to be installed inside the left and right side doors of a car. If the foam blocks are damaged, they must be replaced.

The #47 driver never came into the pits to fix the issue and he was not reprimanded by NASCAR after the race either. However, this was not the only instance.

Both RFK Racing cars had their right-side roof flaps missing after the race. Considering how strict NASCAR is with these bodywork-related rules, this would have easily been a penalty. However, neither the #6 nor the #17 was penalized. Hamlin understands that sometimes, common sense has to take over and one has just to let the drivers race if there isn’t a safety issue.

However, the veteran also turned the clock back to Talladega last year where Kevin Harvick was disqualified for having loose windshield fasteners.

“It makes it hard to sit here and maintain a neutral opinion about it because it doesn’t make sense why sometimes it’s a penalty, sometimes it’s not. It makes you believe that there is bias in our series and whether it’s true or not that’s the perception and sometimes, perception is reality,” he explained.

Hamlin accuses RFK Racing of manipulation

The driver of the #11 car did not hold back especially while talking about how the RFK cars were let go despite not having roof flaps. Ever since the Next-Gen car came into the picture, NASCAR has been quite critical of teams and drivers making changes to the car outside of the rules.

Drivers have been penalized even for using their hands to block air coming into cars. So two cars of the same team missing a significant part and just being let go does seem a bit sketchy.

“The #6 and the #17 had their f***ing right side fins gone, they were removed,” Hamlin said. “Is it an accident, the #6 and the #17 both had both pieces missing from their car post-race.”

“No. I don’t care what excuse anyone tries to give. It was clearly manipulated in some sort of way to distort and when it distorted, it fell off,” he added.

Now that Hamlin has spoken about the matter publicly, NASCAR might be forced to look into it and hand down its judgment accordingly. However, there has been no talk or rumors yet of the sanctioning body taking that step.