NASCAR: Denny Hamlin controversy leads to ridiculous suggestion

NASCAR Twitter is notorious for being somewhat crazy. But the idea that Denny Hamlin should have been suspended is straight-up ridiculous.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver and 23XI Racing co-owned Denny Hamlin found himself in hot water after last Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Both 23XI Racing Toyotas of Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace were heavily damaged in a wreck caused by Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson coming to the checkered flag. Larson made an ill-advised move to the outside, and it collected a number of cars, including those two.

Hamlin was justifiably frustrated afterward, but given the fact that Larson is a close friend of his, he expressed it in what he believed was a funny way.

He shared a Family Guy clip on Twitter of a woman attempting to “cut across eight lanes” without a signal, and he added footage of the Larson incident to the end of it.

Many found it hilarious. Others were offended.

Those offended pointed to the fact that the woman in the video was Asian, and Larson happens to be of Asian descent. Hamlin tweeted again and defended posting the clip, but he later deleted it and issued an apology, stating that he eventually saw how it could be considered offensive. NASCAR then stepped in and required him to complete sensitivity training.

Some felt that the punishment was too harsh, even calling NASCAR “soft” for effectively penalizing him for a meme which he clearly did not intend in any racially offensive manner.

Yet others have bizarrely spent the last week complaining that he wasn’t suspended indefinitely and fired from his roles at Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing.

These individuals have discussed the differences in his punishment and the punishment issued to Larson two years ago.

Larson himself was required to take sensitivity training after using the N-word during an iRacing event in April 2020. However, he was suspended indefinitely, and he ended up being fired by Chip Ganassi Racing as well. He did not compete throughout the rest of the 2020 season.

But there is quite a significant difference between this situation and that of Hamlin.

First of all, Larson wasn’t fired for using the N-word. If he were, it would have happened right away, not two days later. He was fired because of the reaction that Chip Ganassi Racing’s sponsors and partners had to his use of the N-word. They refused to associate with Larson after the incident, so Chip Ganassi had to let him go to avoid losing millions of dollars.

It is also true that Hamlin wasn’t indefinitely suspended by NASCAR like Larson was. However, this “indefinite suspension” issued to Larson was really a formality, considering he ended up being fired and there was really no way around that happening. So technically speaking, as a driver possessing a NASCAR contract, he missed zero races.

Let’s even do back before the Larson incident. In 2013, Xfinity Series driver Jeremy Clements used the same word Larson used, doing so in a conversation with a reporter. He was suspended indefinitely, and he missed only two races.

Larson missed 32 because he was fired, not because of his suspension.

It’s not a matter of different rules for different individuals. It’s about different responses to completely different events.

We can’t neglect to mention the fact that Family Guy literally airs on Fox. Fox is a NASCAR broadcast partner. Using the N-word and sharing a video clip from this show, even one which can absolutely be argued as stereotypical, are two very different mistakes.

And yes, while you can make that stereotype argument about the clip Hamlin shared, how many are actually making that argument if it had been a driver other than Larson who made that move, and therefore nobody had made the connection?

It very well could have been somebody else, and the clip would have had the exact same meaning in terms of what Hamlin intended, considering the move Larson pulled.

Surely, if partners had pulled their support of Hamlin, then his punishment would have ended up looking a lot more like Larson’s. In fact, this pressure is probably why NASCAR got involved and required him to take sensitivity training at all — and it’s probably why they did so only after the Twitter outrage and Hamlin’s ensuing apology.

As for those who claim that Hamlin deserves to be completely removed from NASCAR for sharing a Family Guy clip, wouldn’t it just be easier to write “I hate Denny Hamlin” and move forward with full transparency instead of pretending to be upset by something else? Stick it in your Twitter bio while you’re at it, because it’s quite obvious that those who think this way aren’t interested in what actually happened.