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Denny Hamlin Cheekily Suggests the World Needs “More Will Smiths & Less Chris Rocks” Amidst the Oscar & the NASCAR Drama in Austin

Published 03/28/2022, 4:20 AM EDT

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Despite having a train wreck of a show in terms of presentation, hosts, presenters, and certain winners, the biggest story from last night’s Oscars was Will Smith punching Chris Rock, for real. This was something that NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin feels the world needs more of.

No, no, he is not insinuating violence.

Instead, Hamlin looked at it from a different lens, the lens for what it was. Chris Rock had made an insensitive joke on Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair that didn’t sit well with her husband.

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The thing is, Will Smith’s wife is suffering from a hair loss disease, so it’s not hard to understand why he was mad to the point where he punched the comedian on live, international television.

“If there were more Will Smiths of the world and less Chris Rocks (people so say or do stuff without getting smacked in the face) we wouldn’t have this problem,” Hamlin tweeted.

The 23XI Racing owner’s tweet could also be interpreted as him subtly pointing towards the late race incident between Ross Chastain and AJ Allmendinger.

Did Denny Hamlin suggest NASCAR favoring Hendrick Motorsports?

NASCAR recently announced that Hendrick Motorsports will be taking a modified Next Gen stock car to the 24 hours of Le Mans next year. This was something Denny Hamlin felt was a bit unfair, since it was only HMS that are a part of this program.

In fact, given Toyota’s involvement with endurance racing compared to Chevrolet, a team like Joe Gibbs Racing would’ve made more sense in their place, or at least, alongside them.

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So after the announcement, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Denny Hamlin, tweeted, “Not sure @23XIRacing or @ToyotaRacing were invited to this party.”

Even Freddie Kraft, the spotter for 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace, suggested that his boss’ tweet meant something more than what it appears on the surface.

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USA Today via Reuters

In the recent episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, it was brought up whether anyone got the impression that NASCAR is playing favorites by picking Hendrick and Hendrick only, specifically, for this program.

“I did initially get that impression,” Kraft said. “I think that’s what Denny (Hamlin) is insinuating here, obviously, that there’s some kind of collusion between NASCAR and Hendrick.”

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“Maybe it should’ve been one car per manufacturer. That would’ve probably been a little more fair.”

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Written by:

Shaharyar Khan Chauhan

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Shaharyar is an F1 & NASCAR writer at EssentiallySports. A graduate in Journalism from Amity University, he has been a passionate follower of motorsports for a better part of the decade. A Max Verstappen and Ferrari supporter, he dreams of a pairing of the two in future.
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Edited by:

Ankit Sharma