CIA Stock Photo
A week earlier at Daytona International Speedway, Stewart was running second to Denny Hamlin early in the race when he hit his teammate from behind, touching off a crash that took out both cars.
Stewart blamed it on Hamlin for going too slow, which didn’t sit well. They let it fester for a week until Joe Gibbs paid a surprise visit to Chicago and told them to behave.
July 17,2007
When Denny Hamlin refused to quietly take teammate Tony Stewart’s criticism, it marked a rare occasion of a young driver not rolling over for the two-time NASCAR champion.
And sending word through the media that he didn’t appreciate being publicly blamed for their accident in Daytona showed that Hamlin has the confidence—or ego—to go toe-to-toe with his teammate. After all, the budding young star is the future of Joe Gibbs Racing and probably believes he’s above being bullied.
The public sniping forced team owner Joe Gibbs to interrupt his vacation and make a pit stop in Chicago, where he gave a 30-minute lecture on playing well with others to his top two drivers.
- Jenna Fryer, AP.org
Joe Gibbs hoped teammates Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart could handle their dispute between themselves when he left Daytona International Speedway last weekend. When it became apparent they couldn’t, the owner of Joe Gibbs Racing made a special stop at Chicagoland Speedway to settle it himself. Gibbs met with his drivers, who had no idea he was coming, during the first part of Saturday’s final Nextel Cup practice and then left for a vacation in Colorado.
- David Newton, ESPN.com
He then mentioned a situation with Hamlin the day before in practice, something nobody would have been aware of had he not brought it up and nobody still is totally sure about because he refuses to address it.
He then questioned Hamlin’s trustworthiness as a teammate even though Hamlin did nothing wrong.
Asked to explain what happened, Stewart became defensive.
- David Newton, ESPN.com
Denny Hamlin said he still doesn’t understand it. Tony Stewart obviously still doesn’t get it.
And if they’ve talked, Stewart claims they will be keeping that to themselves.
Speaking publicly for the first time since he and Stewart wrecked to ruin their nights in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway last Saturday, Hamlin admitted on Friday that Stewart’s post-race tirade directed toward him after the incident both baffled and frustrated him.
- Joe Menzer, NASCAR.COM
“Definitely,” Hamlin said Friday at Chicagoland Speedway when asked if he’s disappointed at how Stewart blamed Hamlin for the crash, which happened with Hamlin leading and Stewart running second.
“Even if it was a situation where I had wrecked him from behind, he still probably shouldn’t have thrown me under the bus as far as he did,” Hamlin said. “I was the guy in front. It was a little bit of disappointment, so that’s why I’ve taken this week to kind of calm down.”
- DAVID POOLE, charlotteobserver.com
Doing the HotPass telecast was interesting. I was following Stewart, and you call the race like a No. 20 fan. I was able to talk with Tony after he and Denny Hamlin crashed, and I got some of his insight. After talking with Tony for a little while, all of the sudden, it clicked that the same thing happened to him in February.
In the Daytona 500, he was coming off of Turn 4, got a little loose and probably got out of the throttle a little bit. Kurt Busch took himself and Tony out of the race. I think Tony started to recall that incident. It was obvious, watching him on camera, that some of his anger had diminished.
- Darrell Waltrip from Fox Sports
On his weekly satellite radio show, Stewart said he had not yet talked with Hamlin but that he and last year’s top rookie have a good relationship. “Oh, yeah. And the thing that people didn’t understand about the deal the other day is I remember when we were in Sonoma [last month] and he had just won the Busch race at Milwaukee and I put a note on his door just telling him that I was proud of him and he did a good job with the circumstances that happened there,” he said “I love the kid like a little brother. There’s not any animosity from that. It’s just as tough as the competition is and the way that some of the things happen during the weekend and early in the race like that, I think there’s ways that we can work as teammates better ... But we’ll get all that stuff figured out. And that’s just part of being young teammates. I mean, we’ve only worked with each other a year and a half.”
- Associated Press via ESPN
Denny Hamlin was leading the race going into Turn 4 of the 2.5-mile track when Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart bumped him from behind in what NASCAR calls the no-bump zone. Hamlin almost saved his car, and then Stewart bumped him again to start a multi-car wreck that sent both to the garage. Next thing you know, Stewart is on television blaming Hamlin for the accident. “All of a sudden he just stops on the exit of Turn 4 and in front of 42 cars and he can’t expect all of us to drive around him,” Stewart said. “He just wrecked two really good race cars.
- ESPN
