Michael McDowell Clears Chase Elliott Beef With Denny Hamlin: “There’s No Way He’s Going To..”

Michael McDowell roared onto the front stretch as he took the checkered at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for his second career win, locking himself in the playoffs. With his first win being the Daytona 500 in 2021, McDowell is proving himself to be the big track guy.  Meanwhile, there were high hopes for Chase Elliott to grab his first win of the season, but that just did not happen. Despite closing the gap toward the end, there were just not any more laps left for the Dawsonville native to nab the victory over McDowell.

Just a couple of weeks ago, fellow driver Denny Hamlin mentioned how he believed that Elliott would be able to win at road courses and close the gap solely on points to McDowell. The FRM driver seemed to have taken up the challenge and proved Hamlin wrong after the race at Indy Road course.

Michael McDowell gives his side of the Denny Hamlin conversation

Speaking after his race win, McDowell mentioned, “I’ll be honest, I don’t get on there (Twitter) a lot. And I typically don’t let things bother me much and it’s not that it bothered me. But what he put out there was just inaccurate. Chase Elliott is the best road racer in the Cup series. We know that right now he has the most wins.”

“So you can’t statistically say that. He’s not the best he is the best right? And that was not a dig at Chase. All I was doing is looking at the stats. He’s not going to gain 40 points on us on the road courses. Now he could win. I would agree with him on that he can win for sure which obviously he was close today.”

“Prove me wrong,” said Denny Hamlin.

“Planning on it,” said Michael McDowell.

Sunday, it happened. pic.twitter.com/0s0yHznm93

— Kelly Crandall (@KellyCrandall) August 14, 2023

“But I felt like if we just go out there and do what we do on the road course and we’re gonna run fifth in each stage. We’re gonna finish fifth in the race and he’s maybe going to gain 5-7-8 points, right? There’s no way he’s going to make up 40 to us on the road courses. So that’s all I was saying. But you know how it happens, right? It’s not how it comes off, you know?…”

Mcdowell did end the topic on a light note, saying maybe Hamlin should invite him to his podcast, Actions Detrimental, to talk about the whole episode.

What was the banter between the two?

Hamlin had glued himself behind Chase Elliott mentioning that since he was good at road courses he would be able to get into the playoffs on the basis of points alone. But then his co-host argued that Michael McDowell was also really good at road courses. Since essentially Elliott was racing anyone it was the cutline and McDowell was at the cutline previously.

Hamlin then adamantly counter-argued by stating, “Chase Elliott’s good on F****** road courses. What are you talking about?” A clip of this segment from his podcast made it onto Twitter. Soon enough McDowell saw the post and he responded stating, “I’ll take that bet @dennyhamlin. Pull up total points scored on road courses with the NextGen car. I think we got a good shot at it.”

Soon after, Hamlin responded to the Daytona 500 winner and asked McDowell to prove him wrong. The FRM driver then responded with affirmation and said that he was planning to. In the end, McDowell did end up winning at the Indy Road course, hence securing himself in the playoffs and increasing the gap to Elliott. Now, the HMS driver has one last shot at Watkins Glen to prove Hamlin right in one way.