The Denny Hamlin / Bubba Wallace feud won't die just yet. At the end of the Daytona 500, Hamlin and Wallace had contact and Wallace ended up in the wall after the finish line. Both drivers were upset about the incident, but neither agreed on exactly what caused it.
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Then, video of Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin squaring off surfaced after the Daytona 500.
@dennyhamlin and @BubbaWallace not too happy with each other after the 500 @NASCARONFOX @espn @NASCARonNBC pic.twitter.com/5uKP9CkWmZ
— Ben Black (@ben_black7) February 19, 2018
Everyone assumed the altercation was in response to the on-track incident, but Hamlin took to Twitter to give his side of the story:
Let me clue the idiots on Twitter what I was pissed off about. I had no issue with how the race ended. I was minding my own business on the bottom of the track and out of the blue I get ran into, my tire blown, and perfectly straight car destroyed. I’m good with all that.
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) February 20, 2018
Anyone who wouldn’t take offense to the stupid things that was said has absolutely no backbone. I have one
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) February 20, 2018
Related: Bubba Wallace explains what happened during heated moment with Denny Hamlin after Daytona 500
Hamlin was clearly not thrilled with Wallace about his Adderal joke in a post-race interview:
"I want to see the replay before I say anything stupid but he may need to take some Adderrall for that one," he said.
That's a clear reference to Hamlin's controversial remarks on a BarStool Sports podcast that 70 percent of NASCAR drivers were taking Adderall or some other ADD-type drug. Hamlin later backtracked and said he was joking.
Related: Kevin Harvick thinks a veteran driver should keep his mouth shut following offensive comments
On SiriusXM NASCAR Radio's "The Morning Drive" via NBCSports, Wallace seemed to confirm that the comments, not the on-track contact, are what really sent Hamlin over the edge.
"I was told I cut his tire as I was doing the interview, and I already had my mind made up about what had happened,'' Wallace said. "Just got into the heat of the battle. At the end of the day, we're racing and that's what you do, you go down and sidedraft the guy through the short chute and try to suck him all the way down and get the run and pull away from him and just felt like he had turned right. That was my opinion. He had thought otherwise. He said there was more footage from in-car that I haven't seen yet. I've been looking for and haven't seen yet.
"At the garage, he was upset with me over the comments I made about something he was joking about, which shouldn't have been joked about. All in all, that's all right. We're actually texting each other right now, we're still not happy. I'm OK, he's not. We're racers, and we'll go to Atlanta and be battling each other.
"I told him we'll be racing together for a long time so I wanted to step out and reach out and clear the air. We'll see how long it takes to officially clear the air."
On Wallace's end, he was just upset that Hamlin prevented him from celebrating with his team by crashing him and sending him to the infield care center.
"I told him I was just pumped up with the way we finished and just hated that I couldn't go out and celebrate the finish with my guys," Wallace said. "I really wanted to see them. I had Richard Petty running all over pit road and all over Daytona to the infield care center so that was just a bummer. When you have a good finish, the first thing you want to do is get out and hug your guys and give them all the praise that they deserve.''
So far, neither driver is backing down from their feud.
