“I love it.” This is what Denny Hamlin said after a flood of boos descended on him right after his monumental win at Pocono last season. Interestingly, in the past few years, Hamlin, who never really had all the love from the NASCAR faithful as a popular figure in the sport, more or less settled and made peace with the fact that he was currently NASCAR’s villain No. 1.
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Hamlin attested to and emphasized this perception of his personality during the recent Netflix docu-series, ‘NASCAR: Full Speed.’ In the first episode of the series, as the narrative turned to Hamlin’s win no. 50 in the Cup at Pocono last season, the #11 driver spoke about the boos and his image as a negative personality in NASCAR.
“I don’t think that I show that much humility on the outside. I recognize it on the inside but I think people see me as very cocky and brash. That’s fine. That’s my persona,” he said.
“I don’t want my competition thinking that, ‘Oh what a gee shucks nice guy.’ F**k that.”
NASCAR needs more people like Denny Hamlin as per Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Right after Hamlin’s comments, one of his friends and former rivals, who knows a thing or two about what NASCAR needs to become more attractive as a brand, Dale Earnhardt Jr., pressed on the need for personalities like Hamlin for the overall good of the sport.
“Every sport that has success, is successful is because of unique personalities on the field. People that you love to hate. People that you love to love. People that you relate to, that good and bad. The villain and the hero,” Earnhardt said. “He does it his way and doesn’t care what anybody thinks. And for our sport to have success, it has to have people like Denny Hamlin.”
In fact, last year, when Jeff Gordon deemed Hamlin’s outspokenness as “too controversial,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver decided to fire back at the 4x Cup champion. He claimed that Gordon’s way of going about this subject was “absolute wrong” if someone wants NASCAR to have more star power, something the sport currently needs heaps of.
Hamlin deemed Gordon’s way ‘how to stunt NASCAR growth 101.’
