{"id":303093,"date":"2025-11-24T04:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T04:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T04:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T04:56:14","slug":"denny-hamlin-cranks-up-the-heat-as-nascars-explosive-text-scandal-spirals-out-of-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303093\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin Cranks Up the Heat As NASCAR\u2019s Explosive Text Scandal Spirals out of Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday proved to be a critical day in the NASCAR<\/a> antitrust lawsuit outside the court, with text chains involving Denny Hamlin\u00a0from the years gone by coming to the forefront. The sport\u2019s top management became the hot topic of conversation, thanks to their no-holds-barred text exchanges revealing their ironclad approach in several areas of operations.<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s participation in the now-discontinued Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) irked Steve Phelps and Steve O\u2019Donnell, prompting a stern exchange between the two. And with the texts going public, it was only a matter of time before Hamlin chimed in.<\/p>\n

Relentless Denny Hamlin Hits the Iron While It\u2019s Still Hot<\/p>\n

Veteran Journalist and NASCAR insider Steven Taranto was the first to stir the pot after another text chain went viral, where Jeff Dickerson\u00a0and an unnamed person spoke about several pressing topics at the time.<\/p>\n

One of them wondered whether Heather Gibbs, who became the COO of Joe Gibbs Racing after her husband\u2019s demise, was a \u201cplant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The focus then shifted to the fans, who \u201cdon\u2019t all read\u201d what the NASCAR books say, suggesting that they make good use of the same. Taranto, through his update, found it comical that in the middle of it all, the first use of \u201cDARFs\u201d (Dumb A** Racing Fans)\u00a0was made by someone from the teams\u2019 side rather than the management.<\/p>\n

John Newby, another respected journalist in the realm, replied to Taranto, calmly putting forward his point that there was no guarantee that the unnamed person was indeed from one of the teams. Pointing out that the person was previously in the same room as Jim France, Newby hinted that there was a good chance that it was someone from the management side, but did not want to make any outright claims.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Hamlin entered the arena, swiftly hinting at what he thought of the unnamed person. He needed just one sentence to clear the air, given his long-standing enmity with the sport\u2019s top brass.<\/p>\n

He wrote<\/a>, \u201cIs it not obvious?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 23XI co-owner\u2019s response comes shortly after the text threads of Phelps and O\u2019Donnell went public<\/a>, where they criticized the now 45-year-old\u2019s choice to race in SRX .<\/p>\n

Neither of the two men was happy with the decision and claimed that every driver who participated in the series was \u201cstupid.\u201d They proceeded to discuss the need to \u201cput a knife in this trash series,\u201d and given the timeline of the texts, that\u2019s when the SRX series was called off.<\/p>\n

What was first looked at as a necessary step to minimize losses has now become a major talking point in the antitrust lawsuit. NASCAR has already been accused of monopolistic practices in the stock car racing market, and the timeline of the texts and the calling off of SRX has now handed further ammo to Hamlin and Co. as they remain on the offensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday proved to be a critical day in the NASCAR antitrust lawsuit outside the court, with text chains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-303093","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\/303093","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=303093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}