Joey Logano Not Buying NASCAR Explanation on Controversial Denny Hamlin Call

Following the unsettling chaos that ensued since Denny Hamlin’s victory in Richmond on Sunday, NASCAR issued a detailed explanation as to why he wasn’t penalized for jumping the final restart. While the promotion acknowledged that the Joe Gibbs Racing star was a bit early in firing, it maintained that it couldn’t hold him to it because of the late stage in the race.

With discussions breaking out over the latest updates from the Daytona Beach HQ, former Cup Series champion Joey Logano has outright refused to consider this explanation a fair one. He appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and expressed his views on the rule-breaking and NASCAR’s take on it. He noted, concerningly, how the restart wasn’t even under review until Martin Truex Jr. mentioned it during the race.

“I’ll tell you one thing, if I get black-flagged for doing that next week I’m going to be pissed. Because why was it okay last week?” he said. “The restart wasn’t even under review until Truex said he jumped the start. It wasn’t even a thought in NASCAR’s mind, I don’t think. Because if there is something, they’re very quick to say the restart is under review.”

Continuing, he used the example of a similar incident during an Xfinity race to make his case. “There was one under review in the Xfinity Race, right, when I was up in the FOX booth?” He recalled and narrated how Aric Almirola pulled an identical move that was far less over the line than Hamlin’s. “There was nothing to review there, in my opinion, and they did review it and they realized nothing there. They let it go.”

He concluded that if Almirola’s move in an Xfinity Series race was under review, so should Hamlin’s in a Cup Series race.

What did NASCAR exactly rule regarding Hamlin’s infringement?

NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, was on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to explain his team’s view of the issue. He said, “It’s a bang-bang call. It’s at the end of the race. We’re a live sporting event. We don’t have the luxury of a timeout and go to the sideline and review it and make that call. If this happens at Lap 10 or 50 or 300, you know, the call could have been different.”

He added that he wouldn’t be following similar methods in races that followed if he was a competitor. He reasoned that the call from the tower would not always go in a driver’s favor.