In 2012, Denny Hamlin’s day at Michigan went up in literal flames. He had just tangled with Ryan Newman, sending his car spinning through the grass. Hamlin tried to steer it to pit road, but before he could even pull into his stall, the right side of his Toyota exploded into flames. “I thought for a second there I was OK. It was just in the back, and then something exploded in the front and caught on fire,” Hamlin said at the time.

His day ended in the infield care center, where he was cleared, but not before watching another potential top-five run burn out. That moment stuck with Hamlin. He admitted he had seen it happen to others but had “never known what it’s actually like.” The heat. The smoke. The helplessness. “It gets hot,” he said with a grim tone. “A fire’s not a great way to end it.” That incident wasn’t just another DNF—it was a reminder of how fast things can fall apart in this sport. One second, you’re racing up front, the next you’re climbing out of a smoking shell.

Now, more than a decade later, that same nightmare returned, this time at Texas Motor Speedway. Sunday’s race at Texas wasn’t kind to Denny Hamlin. Just 75 laps into the Wurth 400, his No. 11 Toyota suffered a violent engine failure. Oil leaked beneath his race car. Smoke clouded his cockpit. Then came the fire. Somehow, Hamlin avoided hitting anything. But the damage was done. His day was over before it really began.

Denny Hamlin vents out over team radio!

NASCAR’s safety team acted quickly, and Hamlin climbed out without injury. But you could hear the exasperation in his voice. As his car smoked in the background, Hamlin’s radio crackled with a smug, exhausted sigh: “Well, that was fun, fellas.” Five words, soaked in sarcasm. A message less about the fire and more about everything that had gone wrong before it. The boiling point wasn’t just mechanical—it was emotional. After the incident, he said, “Uh, it’s just a lot before it started missing, but, uh, no, not really. It just blew up.”

However, Denny Hamlin’s day had already started sliding sideways before the incident. During the first pit cycle, a miscommunication over code words caused a total breakdown on pit road. The team used “Cowboys” as a signal. Hamlin misheard it due to overlapping voices on the radio. He never made the stop on his first pass, then got a speeding penalty when he tried to correct it. Two trips down pit road and a penalty later, Hamlin found himself at the back of the field. “You can’t call a team that’s the same f——- name as another… Never mind,” he vented over the radio.

“You boys were talking over each other, and I heard ‘Cowboys,’ and obviously I looked at my card,” he added. The tone wasn’t angry—it was annoyed and tired. He knew this kind of mistake shouldn’t be happening at this level. And boom, within a few laps, his car was on fire. After the race, he told the broadcaster, “Yeah, miscommunication between me and the team, and, uh, they gave me a code. It was too close to another code, and, uh, it just got mixed up there. Hoping to lift it back, and then it caught fire.”

Just as the 11-crew hoped to play long-game strategy and claw their way back, the engine gave out. The oil pan likely failed, according to FS1’s Clint Bowyer. Smoke filled the cockpit. The fire grew. Then the spin. Meanwhile, Hamlin’s chances in the regular season also took a major hit. He came into Texas ranked third in the standings. After this DNF, those championship hopes took a blow. Not impossible to recover, but certainly harder now. Sunday at Texas cost him a chunk, and possibly more momentum than his team can afford to lose.

Notably, this wasn’t even his first fire incident of the year. Earlier this year at Martinsville, Hamlin’s car caught fire on pit road. While he eventually won the race and ended his 10-year-long drought at the iconic track, that incident sparked more than flames. A NASCAR official was caught on video taking a fire extinguisher from a safety worker and putting out the fire himself. The moment raised eyebrows. Social media lit up with theories.

Was the official trying to protect evidence of a mechanical failure? It wouldn’t be the first time NASCAR’s technical drama took center stage. For Hamlin, it was another example of chaos finding him at the worst time. However, ahead of the race, Hamlin had a good life lesson for his former teammate Kyle Busch, who recently joined him in the 40s club.

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Hamlin’s sage advice for Kyle Busch after 40!

On May 2, Kyle Busch turned 40. The Richard Childress Racing driver has been phenomenal in his two-decade-long career. However, recent years haven’t been kind to him, and Denny Hamlin has some words for him. When asked about Kyle Busch turning the big 4-0 ahead of the Texas race, Hamlin offered some honest, grounded advice, and maybe a subtle warning too. “To me, it’s just taking care of your body more,” Hamlin told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass.

“Everyone’s different. Everyone’s taken different hits throughout their career. But for me personally… my body really changed at 40 to make it to where I had to do just tons more maintenance,” he further added. Hamlin, now 44, still competes at a high level, but it takes work. From physical therapy to recovery sessions, the older he gets, the more time he spends just staying race-ready. It’s not just about the car anymore, it’s about keeping his own engine running smoothly.

He didn’t stop there. Hamlin also weighed in on Busch’s performance slump since joining Richard Childress Racing. Busch failed to make the playoffs last year — a first in 19 seasons — and went winless for the first time in his Cup career. “But I mean, he’s doing everything… he’s still as good a driver as I think he’s been in the last 10 years. Sometimes… you get to a car that doesn’t necessarily like your style and you have to adapt to the car in the next gen car,” Hamlin said in support of his former teammate.

That “next gen” challenge has bitten a lot of veterans, and Busch is still figuring out how to tame his ride. But he’s not losing confidence. Speaking with FrontStretch, Busch shrugged off the birthday milestone and looked ahead with optimism. “I still feel like I did seven years ago,” Busch said. He added that Hamlin’s consistency, even in his 40s, is something to chase. “Denny’s done a great job. He’s… 43, 44, still winning races, winning them at, you know, more than one a clip a year. That’s admirable and something that I want to do,” he added.

So, while 40 may not feel like a big deal to Kyle Busch just yet, Hamlin’s message is clear — the body doesn’t always agree. If Busch wants to stay in the hunt, especially in the unforgiving world of Cup racing, he might want to listen to the man still climbing victory lane with an ice pack in hand.