Denny Hamlin has had his fair share of rivalries throughout his NASCAR Cup Series career, but he’s watching from afar as Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain go through their own.
It all started during last season’s Cup Series finale, where Chastain won the race at Phoenix, but Blaney came home a champion. The Team Penske wheelman wasn’t thrilled with the way Chastain raced him, especially since the Trackhouse Racing driver wasn’t in the Championship 4.
During last weekend’s race in Las Vegas, the beef was rekindled between the two drivers, as Blaney made some loud, disparaging comments over the radio regarding Chastain, and the No. 1 wheelman took a subtle dig at the reigning champion during his post-race media scrum.
“I saw that, I don’t know that we should really overreact,” Hamlin stated, regarding the rivalry while touching on the subject matter on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.. “I think Blaney goes off the deep end most weeks. Like, the is just who he is. He just loses his brain over the radio. It’s one thing to just maybe yell into your helmet, or chew the steering wheel when you’re really upset, but he just clicks the button and just goes haywire.
“So I wouldn’t read up into it too much. But I guess he was talking s— about Chastain or something.”
While Hamlin chalked up Blaney’s comments to the frustration he felt inside the car at the time, he got a kick out of Chastain’s comments after the race, where he relayed some false praise Blaney’s way for the way the No. 12 was blocking him during the race.
“We’ll just keep an eye on this whole Blaney-Chastain thing,” Hamlin added. “I don’t know. I think Chastain made kind of a snark comment after the race saying, ‘You know, I saw him air-blocking, and I’m proud of him,’ so it’s just, I don’t know. It’s interesting.”
As fate would have it, we’ll return to the track where this beef started in the first place, as the NASCAR Cup Series moves to Phoenix for their fourth weekend of the campaign. Both Chastain and Blaney should be fighting for a win this weekend, as well as the aforementioned Hamlin.
We’ll have our eyes on all three, and if there’s any contact between Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney in the desert on Sunday afternoon. It should be an awesome show.