Sunday’s (Sept. 21) NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was a nightmare for Joe Gibbs Racing. The entire team was down on speed at a track where it entered as three-time defending winners, but to make matters worse, two of its drivers — Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs — engaged in friendly fire.
Hamlin, Gibbs and fellow JGR teammate Christopher Bell found themselves in a long, fierce battle for 11th place early in stage two, and Gibbs — a non-playoff driver — wasn’t making it easy on his teammates, as the trio made contact multiple times.
Eventually Hamlin’s frustration boiled over, and he proceeded to spin Gibbs in turn 1 on lap 111.
Hamlin went on the finish 12th; the resulting damage sent Gibbs to the garage and left him with a 35th-place finish.
Both Gibbs and Hamlin had little to say to the media about the incident upon exiting their cars. Joe Gibbs, JGR team owner and Ty Gibbs’ grandfather, gave the following response when asked about next steps following the incident: “Those guys are the ones driving the cars, and so those guys can get together on their own and figure it out.”
There are only six races left in the 2025 season, and it appears that Hamlin and Gibbs — two drivers that are no strangers to controversy, mind you — will be left on their own to squash this feud.
Was New Hampshire the beginning and the end of the feud between the two drivers? Or is there still unfinished business between them? -Stephen Stumpf
Cooler Heads Will Prevail
The mid-race incident between Hamlin and Gibbs at New Hampshire had so many interesting variables: teammates; experience vs. youth; difficulty with passing with this iteration of the car; playoff vs. non-playoff contenders; feisty radio communications; a driver with 59 wins and a storied career and a young gun desperately looking for a maiden win to back up his obvious talent.
It had it all right up until the No. 54 car ended up in the wall off the nose of the No. 11 car.
So does this go further?
Listening to the immediate post-race interview Gibbs gave the NBC broadcast, you would have to say yes, even if it was packaged in a non-answer.
But my guess is that once we’ve put a few days between the incident, the reaction and the two drivers — who, let’s not forget, are longtime friends — find a way to, using the business parlance, align offline and let the matter drop.
Now, here’s the thing: does Gibbs have a case? It’s arguable to say he does; he did end up in the wall, after all. But is he going to take out Hamlin either at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL (if they’re even running together) or on the fast mile-and-a-half Kansas Speedway? I just don’t see it.
Revenge in these situations needs to be both managed and proportional. Taking out Hamlin to quench upset feelings and potentially ruining his championship bid is not a proportional response from Gibbs. Plus, it would likely lead to a suspension.
Racing Hamlin hard is proportional by comparison but is also ill advised given the title stakes. And as for the managed part, Hamlin will be more than aware something could happen, so Gibbs would also have to manage his approach to the retaliatory behavior if that was what he chose.
In Hamlin’s Actions Detrimental podcast, he suggested that JGR leadership should step in and set the tone for how things move forward but also was clear that if teammates are racing each other like mortal enemies, there are direct consequences.
“These (races) are hard enough to win anyway, but if you’re going to have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the track, then this is going to be really tough for any one of us to win,” Hamlin said. “… And from my standpoint, I would think Ty would want one of us to win a championship, because it’s his name on the building.”
And let’s be fair, that’s a very solid argument.
Over the years, Hamlin has been something of a mentor to Gibbs. Back at Nashville Superspeedway on the occasion of Hamlin’s 700th start, I asked Gibbs about the influence Hamlin has played on his career and life, and he was effusive in his praise: “He’s been a great teammate to me, feel like we consider each other family. … I’ve known him my whole life … always enjoyed being around Denny.”
Close, family-type friends argue. It’s normal and natural in the course of long relationships. I’m sure Gibbs feels very aggrieved at the incident, but after a few days and some conversations directly with Hamlin and team leadership, my guess is that they both move on.
Could Gibbs make his point and get his revenge? Sure. But it doesn’t seem like the smart thing to do given all that is on the line these next few weeks. And ultimately, Gibbs can benefit from Hamlin’s wealth of knowledge and experience both directly through work and also as a friend.
My bet is that once Gibbs weighs that all up, he will forget, forgive and move forward. Both have bigger goals to attain. -Danny Peters
Gibbs & Hamlin Are Far From Fine
“Nothing is Over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off!”
Such were the words of John Rambo to Colonel Trautman at the end of First Blood. While the subject matter is dramatically different, the feeling of righteous indignation and justification from Gibbs appears to be starting to bubble to the surface.
While Gibbs wouldn’t address what happened immediately after the incident, we do know in the past how he has handled similar incidents when he’s been on the giving end: unrepentant and indifferent. As of Sept. 23, he responded with a pointing emoji to closed captioning of Kevin Harvick explaining how Hamlin intentionally moved up to make contact with Gibbs.
My initial reaction was, “Yeah, we know,” but it was the first time he’s actually acknowledged something intentional did happen. Joe Gibbs stated he was going to let the drivers handle it, which is going to be a pivot point for his grandson in his maturation as a driver or teammate. That said, an emoji post emphasizing he was in the wrong is not going in the right direction.
Inter-team drama is nothing new in NASCAR, and certainly not at JGR. Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth immediately come to mind, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson for sure at Hendrick Motorsports and Kyle Busch had his run-ins with Hamlin while they were both at JGR, most notably at the 2010 All-Star Race with some explicit radio traffic. When Hamlin first arrived on the scene, he even drew the ire of Tony Stewart, who remarked he didn’t know what it meant to be a teammate.
This one, though, is a little different. It’s one thing when you have the same team organization sticker on the car or patch on a firesuit, but it’s a bit different when the driver’s name on the roof rail matches the one on said sticker or patch.
There’s also the matter of the individual involved who was on the receiving end of a learning lesson. It’s no secret that there’s one car at JGR that hasn’t been up to speed consistently this year. Still searching for his first win while the Nos. 11, 19 and 20 teams are in the conversation of winning weekly — as well as championship favorites — it has to be frustrating for Gibbs, who ultimately was favored over Busch to drive the No. 54 (the former No. 18) after a decade-and-a-half of service and two titles by Kyle.
That said, the results have not matched the success he had enjoyed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Results this year have been mixed, and he was working on his third top-10 finish in a row before Hamlin assisted him out of the way, almost collecting Bell in the process. Gibbs has largely kept his nose clean his first three seasons in the Cup Series, but the progression has been slow in coming. Ten-to-12 top 10s a year seem to be his ceiling at the moment, and Hamlin is the old guard trying to capture the championship that has eluded him.
Gibbs no doubt feels he has to make statement to not be a pushover for a guy twice his age, while Chase Briscoe and Bell, who are about as mild-mannered and non-threatening as a corgi, are on the verge of breaking out into five-plus-win seasons annually.
Will this be the last time it comes up between Gibbs and Hamlin? I seriously doubt it, not without grandfatherly intervention. Without some reigning in, this has the potential to go sideways for the organization very quickly and in an ugly fashion.
Past actions are often indicative of future results. The preferred outcome is for some humility on both sides, realizing there is equal blame to go around. That said, Hamlin has far more to lose, and if the championship is as important as we’re led to believe each week, Gibbs should have been cognizant of his role in helping to bring the team that bears his last name a title for his family’s operation and Toyota as a whole.
It may not come this weekend, it may wait until Martinsville Speedway or maybe even next season, but this conflict is not going away quietly. –Vito Pugliese
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
Vito is one of the longest-tenured writers at Frontstretch, joining the staff in 2007. He’s a contributor to several other outlets, including Athlon Sports and Popular Speed in addition to making radio appearances. He forever has a soft-spot in his heart for old Mopars and presumably oil-soaked cardboard in his garage.
Danny Peters has written for Frontstretch since 2006. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.