{"id":180736,"date":"2025-09-30T19:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/180736\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T19:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:18:12","slug":"kevin-harvick-blames-denny-hamlin-for-violating-unwritten-nascar-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/180736\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Harvick Blames Denny Hamlin For Violating ‘Unwritten’ NASCAR Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NASCAR<\/a> champion Kevin Harvick didn\u2019t hold back when discussing Denny Hamlin\u2019s controversial finish at Kansas Speedway. During his appearance on NASCAR on FOX\u2019s \u201cHappy Hour\u201d podcast, Harvick accused the three-time Daytona 500 winner of breaking one of racing\u2019s most fundamental unwritten rules.<\/p>\n

The incident cost both Toyota teams a potential victory and handed Chase Elliott an unexpected win. Denny Hamlin suffered a power steering failure in the closing laps of the 2025 Hollywood Casino 400 race at Kansas Speedway, with the issue beginning about 50 laps from the scheduled finish. Despite this major handicap, Hamlin impressively led a race-high 159 of the event\u2019s 273 laps before ultimately finishing second after making contact with Bubba Wallace while battling for the lead and losing out to Chase Elliott by just 0.069 seconds.<\/p>\n

Wallace, who drives for 23XI Racing, the team Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan, had just taken the lead and was trying to hold off his boss when the contact occurred. Both Toyota drivers hit trouble, allowing Elliott to sweep past for his second win of 2025.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Kevin Harvick\u2019s Take?<\/p>\n

Harvick was crystal clear about what Hamlin did wrong. \u201cThe only rule that he broke is one of you better win. Now both teams are out of contention, and they handed a gimme to Chase Elliott when they had everything under control,\u201d he explained<\/a> during the podcast with Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith.<\/p>\n

The veteran driver, who won 60 Cup Series races in his career, emphasized that this rule is sacred in NASCAR. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to bang doors with your teammate and you\u2019re going to do all those things, you better make sure one of you wins the race,\u201d Harvick said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While Hamlin and Wallace aren\u2019t technically teammates, Hamlin\u2019s ownership of 23XI Racing creates the same expectation that any aggressive racing between them should result in a Toyota victory, not hand it to another manufacturer.<\/p>\n

Harvick knows this situation all too well. He shared a story from Montreal in 2007 when he wrecked two of his own cars but still managed to win the race. His team owner wasn\u2019t pleased.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to Victory Lane and I\u2019m like, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s DeLana and Josh sitting over there and yep, they\u2019re still sitting over there. I wonder why.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Come on.\u2019 And they\u2019re like happy. And she\u2019s like, \u2018Flip me the bird,’\u201d Harvick recalled.<\/p>\n

Nobody spoke to him on the flight home, but he stood by his actions because he had won the race and done his job as a driver.<\/p>\n

The Kansas incident was particularly costly for Wallace, who dropped to 10th in the standings, 26 points behind the cutoff line. Instead of securing an automatic playoff advancement, he now faces potential elimination.<\/p>\n

Hamlin defended himself on his podcast, stating that on Sundays, he\u2019s the driver of the 11 car, not the owner of the 23 car, making his primary team the priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NASCAR champion Kevin Harvick didn\u2019t hold back when discussing Denny Hamlin\u2019s controversial finish at Kansas Speedway. During…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-180736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}