\u201cThe Day After\u201d podcast.<\/a><\/p>\nNow, remember, this comes from a guy who has won NASCAR\u2019s biggest race \u2013 the Daytona 500 \u2013 three times and has won at almost every track on the Cup circuit.<\/p>\n
His Win Was Made Even Sweeter By the Fans\u2019 Reaction<\/p>\n
But what made his Las Vegas win so special, in addition to hitting the 6-0 mark, was how fans reacted to Hamlin when he climbed out of his race car on the frontstretch. Even non-Hamlin fans gave him a standing ovation and a long period of well-deserved applause.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a fairly high emotional person, I just don\u2019t bring the emotion into work,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cI never get rattled on the racetrack, it doesn\u2019t matter what happens. I\u2019m able to keep a level head for the most part.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow outside of the car, I feel as though I\u2019m just like everyone else and (I) get emotional about things when it comes to family and kids and all that stuff,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cSo yeah, I think I was a bit more vulnerable than what I had planned on being. And something that certainly the fans had not seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamlin Understands How Dale Earnhardt Felt When He Won His Only Daytona 500<\/p>\n
Hamlin has always had a kind of back-and-forth relationship with NASCAR fans, particularly those who are normally not his supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me I\u2019m okay with whatever they choose,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cI\u2019ve said that many times and if you want to boo me, I am okay with that, I really am. It does not hurt my feelings at all. If you want to cheer for me, great, even better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I appreciated from the Las Vegas fans though is that they understood that that moment meant a lot to me. I kind of picture it like when I was younger and I watched Dale Earnhardt win the Daytona 500. I hated Dale Earnhardt. I was a Bill Elliott guy, but I recognized that moment for him and how significant that moment was for him, and I became a fan of his for that day, for that moment for that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m like, man, that\u2019s awesome that he was able to (finally win the 500) because I clearly knew he was capable. I clearly knew he was good enough. He just got unlucky and didn\u2019t win it a bunch of times. He finally got what he deserved.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what I loved about the Las Vegas fans is, I certainly got a lot of boo\u2019s pre-race, but when I got out of the car and it was all cheers, I\u2019m like, \u2018Wow, they\u2019re giving me my moment.\u2019 Like they understand the significance of it for me and I just was very grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though he sometimes displays a fiery and sometimes arrogant personality on track, Denny Hamlin, for the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,3932,12101,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-221282","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-denny-hamlin","11":"tag-joe-gibbs-racing","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221282","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=221282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}