At the Texas Motor Speedway, it was vindication for Hendrick Motorsports star, Chase Elliott. The 2020 Cup Series champion finally broke a year-long winless streak to lock himself into the Playoffs. Of course, he had to really fight for it, with several contenders for the crown. Among them was Denny Hamlin, who looked very threatening for a long time. However, that lasted until a late restart, where the #11 driver lined up on the front row alongside Elliott.

The last time Hamlin lined up on the front row for a restart, was at the Richmond Raceway. Over there, he jumped the gun and restarted a touch too early, but somehow got away scot-free. This time, though, he restarted fairly legally, but disaster struck when he lost the rear end and slid into the outside wall tail-first. This pretty much ended his challenge and he ultimately ended up classified 30th on the track.

This was cannon fodder for Denny Hamlin haters

Truthfully, Denny Hamlin is a divisive figure in the NASCAR fandom. He has a legion of fans, either from his real-life success or those who probably watched NASCAR: Full Speed, and sympathized with him. On the flip side of the scale, there is also an army of fans who range between not liking him, to absolutely despising his guts. So when the Joe Gibbs Racing star crashed out late in the race, the haters came out in droves to celebrate.

Some people cast their minds back to an incident between him and Kyle Larson. Around that time, Larson wrecked, and Hamlin claimed that he didn’t punt him out. So, some fans jeered that Elliott didn’t spin him out at the Texas Motor Speedway, so he could not play the blame game. Others cheered when he hit the wall and declared that it was karmic justice.

Another cheered, “I don’t care who won as long as it wasn’t Denny Hamlin I love the fact that he got smacked!”. A few people also did a callback to one of Hamlin’s favorite catchphrases, “I beat your favorite driver, all of them”. Naturally, they tweaked it to say that he only managed to beat eight driver favorites, since he finished 30th out of 38 drivers.

How does this result impact the Joe Gibbs Racing star?

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Honestly, this loss does not affect him one bit, especially in terms of the championship. He has already snatched two wins this season, at Bristol and Richmond. As a result, he is comfortably locked into the playoffs and has another chance for that elusive Cup Series title. Sure, this could mean an extra security blanket and fewer chances for other drivers to try and sneak into the playoffs with wins.

On the other hand, Hamlin will try to keep up his momentum and go the distance. In the last 20 years, he has always been so close, yet so far from a Cup Series title. As a result, every year has always been the year he finally takes the plunge, only to fall short. The question is, will Denny Hamlin finally get the monkey off his back? Or will end up like Mark Martin, as the best driver to never win a Cup title?