{"id":234781,"date":"2025-10-18T21:01:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234781\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T21:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:01:22","slug":"denny-hamlin-opens-up-on-hatred-for-dale-earnhardt-in-blunt-verdict-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234781\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin opens up on ‘hatred’ for Dale Earnhardt in blunt verdict – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denny Hamlin has explained why he wasn’t much of a fan of Dale Earnhardt<\/a> growing up after watching the 1998 Daytona 500<\/a> \u2014 which the latter won in dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

Earnhardt had won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships without winning a Daytona 500, finally ending his long wait for a win on the track toward the end of his career.<\/p>\n

Hamlin<\/a> watched the race while growing up a fan of the sport, rooting for one of Earnhardt’s rivals \u2014 who happened to be the father of one of Hamlin’s current rivals, Chase Elliott.<\/p>\n

Hamlin said, “I hate Dale Earnhardt. I was a Bill Elliott guy!<\/p>\n

“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. I clearly knew he was capable. He just got unlucky and didn\u2019t win it a bunch of times. He finally got what he deserved [winning the Daytona].”<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Earnhardt raced in 20 Daytona 500s before eventually winning in spectacular fashion, and then triumphing as an owner in 2001, three years later.<\/p>\n

Tragically, Earnhardt was killed in that same 2001 race when his car crashed straight into the retaining wall. He died instantly due to a skull fracture.<\/p>\n

His son, Dale Earnhardt Jr, raced in the Daytona 500 that year and finished in second place. Learning of his father’s tragic passing, as everyone else did, while in the arena.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Hamlin upset racing fans when stating that he believes neither Dale Earnhardt Sr nor Dale Earnhardt Jr would thrive<\/a> in today’s NASCAR.<\/p>\n

He said, “Dale Jr. and Dale Earnhardt would never have survived in today\u2019s superspeedway racing. Wouldn\u2019t have done it. They wouldn\u2019t have been as successful because of how superspeedway racing happens today…But then to be told who you can and can\u2019t draft with… it\u2019s nonsense. But it\u2019s the world we live in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin has explained why he wasn’t much of a fan of Dale Earnhardt growing up after watching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[130280,11050,1960,425,99],"class_list":["post-234781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-dale-eanrnhardt","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}