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Denny Hamlin was involved in an early crash in the August 24 Daytona race and finished 38th. That early exit gave the Joe Gibbs Racing driver an opportunity to watch the remainder of the race broadcast from his bus, where he saw Harrison Burton hold off Kyle Busch on the final lap to earn his first NASCAR Cup Series win and clinch a berth in the playoffs.
During his August 25 “Actions Detrimental” podcast, the three-time Daytona 500 champion discussed those final moments and was asked what he thought about NBC’s latest addition, play-by-play man Leigh Diffey, and his call from the broadcast booth.
“Fantastic! Oh my gosh,” Hamlin said. “Can we sign him up for 36 of 36 races? Can we just make that executive decision at NBC or NASCAR? Just say, ‘Hey, non-exclusive — let him do all the races.’
“He’s just fantastic. He knows how to match the moment. I don’t know what it is. The great ones know how to match the moment with their voice. They change their tone. They change the speed in which they’re calling a race, right? That’s why he was tabbed to do the 100 meters in the Olympics, right? Because that’s what he does and what he’s really, really good at.
“He’s just a fantastic addition. I thought, generally speaking, NBC’s production, like the 3D car that they’re showing when something goes wrong, they’ve got the CAD that shows all the stuff. NBC is just knocking it out of the park right now.”
After another member of the podcast discussed Diffey’s call on that final lap, Hamlin thought of something else.
“And you know what was great about it too? They let him have it,” he said. “They let him have the moment. Steve (Letarte) and Jeff (Burton) — they didn’t get in it. They knew that this guy’s the play-by-play, let him call it, right? And then we will react to what we just saw after the checkered flag. So that’s a little bit of the chaos that you have I feel like at Fox. Everyone’s trying to call the last lap and it’s a little messy sometimes.”
Denny Hamlin Vocal in Past About Fox’s Announcing
Denny Hamlin calling out Fox’s broadcast isn’t anything new. He’s done it on numerous occasions in the past. In June 2023, the JGR driver brought up the topic on his podcast while discussing coverage of the F1 race at Monaco. He also interestingly brought up Diffey.
“Listen, I have to give an absolute shout-out to the announcers,” Hamlin said. “Unbelievable how, I mean, they make you think, oh my god, this is unbelievable what Max Verstappen did in the final sector in qualifying. I mean, screaming in the mic saying, ‘Cannot believe what just happened!’
“And I’m like, wow, I guess this is — this is a big moment. I should care about it. And it’s just crazy when you hear kind of the monotone that we have (in NASCAR), right? It’s just that da-da-da-da-da-da. Like Leigh Diffey does an amazing job. Wow! He calls IndyCar races. It’s just fantastic.”
Hamlin Also Been Critical of Fox Production
In addition to that final lap at Daytona, Hamlin brought up the overall production at NBC and how it’s considerably better than what is aired during the first half of the season on Fox. He also called out Fox in April 2023 for the lack of quality in their production.
“I think the fans, in general, and on social media, are really, really tough on Fox,” Hamlin admitted. “I think some of it is warranted, but I think that they’re very critical about some really small things that they could get better.
“One thing I saw at (Bristol) dirt last week or when I watched it back, the announcers would be talking about some side-by-side battle, and the camera wasn’t on it. So you didn’t know — what are they talking about? Let me see this battle.
“I did notice too, as soon as some action would start to heat up on a side-by-side battle, they’d cut to like 12th place. You see the second-place guy working over the first-place guy like right on his ass and about to make a move and they cut to like side-by-side for 12th. It’s like, [expletive], let’s keep it in the battle that’s about to dictate who’s going to be leading this race. Certainly, I think from a production standpoint, we could make some improvements.”
According to Hamlin, those improvements have been made at NBC, and after the Daytona race, there’s one specific change he liked and wants to implement across all broadcasts in the future.
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