Denny Hamlin has been the subject of discussion over the past few weeks, with his on-track altercation with Kyle Larson at Pocono still generating talking points. Ever since that, there has been a wave of negative sentiments against him in the NASCAR fan base. Thus, when he went to Richmond for the following race, the crowd made its disdain over the JGR driver clear as they greeted him with a flurry of boos.
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Recently, Hamlin spoke about why he did the “model wave” while coming out of the tunnel at Richmond and his co-host Jared Allen mentioned that NBC had tweeted only his driver intro ahead of the race. Hearing this, Hamlin explained why he believed that NBC had been purposefully feeding drama more than what Fox used to do.
Denny Hamlin believes that NBC has been instilling drama from its side
Allen had mentioned that when Hamlin came out of the tunnel at Richmond he did a model wave. According to him that was the only intro that NBC tweeted about. Subsequently, the JGR driver said, “Well, NBC. I love NBC. But man they feed drama.”
“They feed into the drama way more than Fox does. They play into the rivalries way more than Fox does, which, I mean, they’re trying to get people interested, right? But you also had the president of Richmond saying, you know in our drivers meeting that like last week was great like our phones as soon as it happened. Ticket sales instantly went up.”
Hamlin explains what he plans to do when coming out of the tunnel
As the pair talked further into the podcast, Hamlin’s co-host asked if there was anything that he prepared in his head while coming out of the tunnel for the driver intros. Hamlin mentioned, “Not really. I mean, I just I mean, you don’t want to come out of the tunnel with your head hung high.”
“You know, you don’t want to give the elevens to the people. You just want to smile and wave. Smile and wave. Let him know I hear you. But here I am. There you are. I don’t know. What else do you do? I don’t know what else you are supposed to do.”
While coming out of the tunnel at Richmond, Hamlin had been greeted with boos instead of cheers. But despite the poor reception for the driver, Hamlin did not seem to care much and just walked past the fans with his hands waving in the air.
This was not the first time Hamlin had to face a booing crowd during driver intros. Back in 2021, the JGR driver received a similar welcome at Bristol. Instead of being upset, he came out, waved, and sarcastically mentioned that he loved them as well.
