Denny Hamlin was running third and had a front-row seat as Austin Dillon drove into the rear of Joey Logano in the final corner on the final lap at the August 11 NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver naturally thought when the two cars in front of him drifted up the track and lost momentum that he was on his way to another win at his home track.
Until he wasn’t.
That’s because the Richard Childress Racing driver drove into his right rear, which immediately sent the No. 11 car to the right, up the track, and ending with a hard hit into the wall. What Hamlin didn’t know until later was Dillon’s spotter emphatically told the No. 3 pilot over the team radio to wreck Hamlin as he tried to make the pass for the win on the low side.
“Keep coming down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down! Run him down! Wreck him! ” spotter Brandon Benesch instructed the driver. “Come on! Come on! [Expletive] yeah!”
The three-time Daytona 500 winner addressed the spotter’s remarks on his August 12 “Actions Detrimental” podcast.
“I’m starting to be more and more in the boat, get rid of these stupid spotters, man” Hamlin said. “DBC (Door Bumper Clear podcast) might not like it. And I know it’ll never happen and you can’t because we have superspeedways and it’s a safety thing. But they’ve got to shut the [expletive] up, man.
“They do. They’re not driving the car. It’s interesting that they believe that that’s like a legitimate way to win. You were on your way to a legitimate win but then you got beat. And you have to live with getting beat on that restart. You didn’t do a good enough job that the 22 did. And you have to take that L.”
Denny Hamlin’s Spotter Reveals What Austin Dillon’s Spotter Admitted
On the surface, the words of Dillon’s spotter sound incriminating. But that wasn’t all he had to say. After the race, Benesch went over to Hamlin’s spotter Chris Lambert and candidly admitted that he told his driver to wreck the No. 11.
“Yeah, his spotter just admitted to me and Hirsch (Tony Hirschman – Ty Gibbs’ spotter), that’s on me, I told him to do it,” Lambert told the No. 11 crew chief Chris Gabehart over the radio. “‘I said, ‘You told him to right rear us?’ He said, ‘100 percent. We had to win.'”
“Okay, well at least we got all that on recording,” Gabehart responded. “Uh, you know, whatever. It’s awesome. Really classy.”
Austin Dillon Provides Explanation for Spotter’s Remarks
Austin Dillon appeared on Kevin Harvick’s August 12 “Happy Hour” podcast and offered his perspective on how Benesch viewed the race from the spotter’s stand.
“As far as the spotter going on, I think he was a fanboy last night in that race,” Dillon suggested. “It would be like having a No. 3 fan commentating trying to drive the car up there.
“I told them in the media center when the white flag hits you got to see red in those situations. For me, I’m not looking at anything. Just trying to get to the checkered flag as fast as possible and trying to get the win.”
Denny Hamlin and many others aren’t fans of any spotter fanboying when they are supposed to be doing a job so serious that one wrong move can be the difference between life and death.
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Denny Hamlin Doesn’t Mince Words & Offers Harsh Advice to Spotters After Richmond