Denny Hamlin Says He’ll Pay Back Ross Chastain When It’s Meaningful: “You’ve Gotta Just Fence These Guys Hard”

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Sure doesn’t sound like we’ve seen the end of this beef between Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain.

If you missed yesterday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway, the first trip to the track just outside of St. Louis for NASCAR’s Cup Series featured quite the back and forth between Ross Chastain and…well, pretty much the rest of the field.

It all started when Chastain put Hamlin in the wall early on in the second stage of the race.

Hamlin was none too pleased with Chastain, and though he was significantly off the pace after fixing his car, it seemed he really only had one mission for the rest of the race: Make Ross Chastain’s day miserable.

Every time Chastain pulled up behind him, Hamlin would either slow down, or try to run Chastain to either the top or the bottom of the track, just to make things as difficult as possible for Chastain to get around him.

And Denny wasn’t even the only driver who had it out for Chastain yesterday: After he sent Chase Elliott spinning a few laps later, Elliott repaid the favor and knocked Chastain out of the way too.

Some days you’re the hunter, some days you’re the hunted…but yesterday, Ross Chastain seemed to be both.

After the race ended, Chastain took responsibility for the mess and blamed it on “terrible driving” on his part:

“It’s one thing to do it once but I just kept driving into guys. At this level I’m supposed to be better than that…

I owe half the field an apology, and words aren’t gonna fix it so I’ll have to pay for it on the track and almost did today. And I deserve everything that they do.

I can’t believe that I continue to make the same mistakes and overdrive the corners and drive into guys. I had time under caution to get reset and we go green and I drive into somebody. Terrible.”

So is that it? Will Hamlin just accept his apology and move on? After all, they’re both already locked into the playoffs with two wins each this season.

Well, not hardly.

After the race, Hamlin promised payback for Chastain – and that his payback would come when it meant something:

“Ultimately, the sport is self policing. Usually when you least expect it and when it means the most is when it comes back around…

You’ve gotta just fence these guys hard just to kinda get their attention. But it’s gonna have to be meaningful. It’s gonna be on a meaningful day.”

Even Chastain’s car owner, Justin Marks, and Denny are going at it on Twitter too.

Sounds like Chastain better not let his guard down around Hamlin once the playoffs roll around…

This one’s going to be fun to watch.

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