Things are going so poorly for Kyle Busch that his former teammate, Denny Hamlin, has thought about reaching out. Does the two-time NASCAR champion need someone to reach out? What more does he have to do to get back to his old ways behind the wheel?
Denny Hamlin is a little concerned about his friend Kyle Busch. Watching Rowdy at Richmond, it was clear that he was not in a great mental headspace. Another race where he should have had the speed to compete and pit road mistakes and on-track incidents cost him that.
Speaking on Actions Detrimental, Hamlin joked about wanting to reach out to Busch. Except, it didn’t seem like much of a joke.
“Speaking of Kyle Busch, I was going to text him, ‘Are you okay?’ It was so weird, we were under caution and I felt, BOOM, I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ I guess he was warming his tires up and just f***ing door slammed the s**t out of me. … He is hitting everything! He ran into us under caution. Unintentional, obviously. Then, down the backstretch, we didn’t really talk about the big wreck, but I don’t know. … Well, I wanted to be genuine about it, like ‘Hey bud, how you doing? Doing okay?’ He just wiped out a few cars, and then the 9 was coming by and he clipped him on the way out. I don’t know, man. It’s tough to say, it just, it doesn’t, I don’t know. Doesn’t look right.”
Kyle Busch had a rough race at Richmond. That is the story of his season so far this year. Seeing his teammate, Austin Dillon, win so convincingly can’t help the frustration. Can he get it put together and win at Daytona to make the playoffs?
Denny Hamlin bounced back at Richmond
While P10 was not the best finish that Denny Hamlin could have mustered, it was a nice change of pace after two mediocre weeks at Iowa and Watkins Glen. Hamlin has had a great season but can’t let his results start to fall off now.
Hamlin hasn’t made the Championship 4 since 2021. His postseason performances have not been as good as they were in the past. But the playoffs line up fairly well for Hamlin and his team.
Darlington, Gateway, and Bristol will be three winnable races for Hamlin in the Round of 16. New Hampshire and Kansas in the Round of 12 will be races that Hamlin can do very well at. He can’t have performances like he’s had at Iowa or earlier this season at Atlanta and Kansas. Avoiding DNFs is key to having a good playoff run.
While Denny Hamlin is worried about Kyle Busch, he needs to worry about himself. There is a postseason coming up and Hamlin intends to compete for a championship.
