Denny Hamlin finally speaks - kind of - but not about what happened at Fontana - MotorSportsTalk

Denny Hamlin promised Tuesday that the following day he’d give his side of what happened that caused him to miss this past Sunday at Fontana.

We’re still waiting, now two days later.

Hamlin tweeted Tuesday night that he was holding off saying anything about missing Fontana out of respect due to the death earlier that day of Richard Petty’s wife of 55 years, his beloved Lynda.

But Wednesday came and went and no comment from Hamlin. In fact, one of the more active drivers on Twitter, he hasn’t had a public tweet on his account since Tuesday, either.

The only thing we heard was Wednesday’s press release from Joe Gibbs Racing that Hamlin had been medically cleared to race in this Sunday’s Sprint Cup event at Martinsville.

It was initially reported Sunday that Hamlin missed the race due to a sinus infection that affected his vision, and that he was not cleared by doctors to race.

Wednesday, JGR revealed that Hamlin’s vision issue was caused instead by a metal sliver in his eye which was removed at a Fontana-area hospital.

Finally, late Thursday afternoon, we heard from Hamlin – kind of.

The weekly media release for Hamlin and the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry team had one lengthy answer from the four-time Martinsville winner, but still nothing about Fontana.

When asked if was “eager to get back in the car at Martinsville, one of your best tracks,” Hamlin had this to say:

“It crushed me last week not being able to compete for the guys on the FedEx team. I definitely have extra motivation this weekend at Martinsville, a place that has been a pretty good track for our team over the years.

“Obviously, with my injury last year (missed four races, including Martinsville, after a serious wreck at Fontana), I missed the race one year ago, and we were a little off last fall (started from the pole, finished seventh).

“But, I’m confident that we will be able to run up front and compete for the win this weekend. I’m feeling better and can’t wait to get back in the car on Friday for practice.”

Hamlin has been nothing short of outstanding at Martinsville during his Sprint Cup career. In 16 starts, he has four wins (including three in a row from 2009-2010) and has finished in the top-10 13 times.

The team has not said whether a stand-by driver will be on hand for Hamlin at Martinsville as a precautionary measure. Sam Hornish Jr. was pressed into service with less than an hour before the starting green flag to replace Hamlin at Fontana this past Sunday and finished 17th.

Hamlin’s JGR teammate Kyle Busch won the race.

It’s likely Hamlin will finally open up about what occurred at Fontana, and hopefully explain how he picked up that mysterious metal sliver, in his weekly press availability Friday morning at Martinsville Speedway.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

Denny Hamlin finally speaks — kind of — but not about what happened at Fontana

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

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