NASCAR: Denny Hamlin at risk of missing Dover?

Denny Hamlin was penalized for his tweet after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, but don’t expect him to miss time.

Coming to the checkered flag in last Sunday afternoon’s GEICO 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson made an ill-advised move to the outside that collected multiple cars.

Among the cars collected in the incident were the two cars run by 23XI Racing, the team co-owned by Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan. Kurt Busch’s #45 Toyota was sent into the wall, and Bubba Wallace’s #23 Toyota was as well, leaving him visibly shaken up after getting out his damaged vehicle.

Fortunately, Hamlin and Larson are close friends, so while Hamlin was clearly frustrated with what Larson had pulled off, he expressed it in what he believed was a comical way, sharing a clip from Family Guy of a woman cutting across eight lanes without a signal, and adding actual footage of Larson’s move to it.

But unfortunately, many fans took offense to the clip, as the woman in the clip was an Asian woman. Larson is of Asian descent.

Despite defending the video in a reply to his original tweet, Hamlin later removed both the video and his response. He issued an apology, noting that it had come across wrong and he saw how some had misconstrued it while reading the replies.

After Hamlin apologized, NASCAR stepped in and required him to take sensitivity training. In order to avoid missing any time, he needed to have started the process by yesterday.

Because he did that, and there was never any indication that he wouldn’t, he will not miss this Sunday’s race, the DuraMAX Drydene 400 presented by RelaDyne at Dover Motor Speedway.

In some cases, NASCAR requires that sensitivity training be completed before a driver returns to competition, to the point where it can almost be classified as an “indefinite suspension”.

However, this is generally only done (a) when the offense occurs during the offseason, like we saw with Hailie Deegan in 2021, or (b) when the driver has already been officially suspended — or even fired — by NASCAR and/or his or her own team, like we saw with Larson himself in 2020 during the COVID-19 hiatus.

Given the timing, and the fact that Hamlin wasn’t formally “suspended”, NASCAR simply mandated that he start the process by a certain date in order for him to continue competing in the meantime.

In other words, when the only penalty is the requirement of sensitivity training, it’s rare to see a driver miss any time in addition.

The Hamlin situation is similar to what happened last October with Kyle Busch after he used an offensive word in a post-race interview at Martinsville Speedway. With just one race remaining on the 2021 schedule at the time, NASCAR simply required Busch to complete the training at some point over the offseason in order to return for 2022, and that is exactly what he did.

Hamlin sits in 24th place in the point standings through the first 10 races of the 36-race season with just one top 12 finish, but that top 12 finish is a win a Richmond Raceway which could very well lock him into the playoffs, depending on how many different regular season winners emerge.

The DuraMAX Drydene 400 presented by RelaDyne is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 from Dover Motor Speedway beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET tomorrow afternoon. Qualifying is set to be broadcast live on the same channel beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET later this morning. Don’t miss your chance to start your free trial of FuboTV now!