Denny Hamlin's side of the controversy....and we'll have to wait for Kyle Busch to cool off to get his

   Championship cool, again: Denny Hamlin. Maybe he can teach teammate Kyle Busch something (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   CONCORD, N.C.
   Now it's up to team owner Joe Gibbs to chill things out between his feuding drivers, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
   Gibbs was looking at a possible 1-2-3 finish to Saturday night's $1 million NASCAR Sprint All-Star race....but he wound with three losers and some angry ones at that.
   Busch was trying to pass Hamlin on the outside for the lead in the final miles when Hamlin crowded him high. Busch brushed the wall, and a few laps later his right rear tire blew, sending him into the wall.
   "Somebody better keep me away from Hamlin after this race," Busch fumed on the radio, as he drove his damaged car back into the NASCAR garage and parked it right behind Hamlin's rig, to await a post-race confrontation with his teammate.
   After more than half an hour of talks in the hauler, Gibbs slipped out without comment, Busch stormed off into the night without any further comment...but Hamlin took time to explain his side of the incident.
   "First, he got a big run off the corner, and I was clear getting into the corner," Hamlin said.
    "Basically I just throttled up extremely early, and really it was a bad corner.  He was going to go by me. 
    "He kind of went to the bottom and then went up high it looked like. 
    "Of course, I'm looking out my front windshield, and he (Hamlin's spotter) says I'm 'clear,' so I'm going to use all the race track I can. 
    "The problem is that Kyle had a run to the outside, and with me moving up and getting real tight, it then took some air away from the front of his car and he slid up into the wall. 
    "It's tough for me.  We talked about it, and basically Kyle was just frustrated. He felt like he had a really good car. 
    "Me, I just came from the back, with no practice (after blowing an engine Friday and having to start at the rear of the 21-car field), and got back to the front where we needed to be...and I felt like if I gave up the lead right there then I was going to give up the win. 
    "I don't think Kyle would do anything different if he was in my situation. 
     "It's just when you're the leader, my feeling is that you've got the whole race track.  If a guy is to the outside, then that's when you need to hold your line."
    The post-race conversation?
    "It's a good conversation to have," Hamlin said.  "Me and Tony (Stewart) has had this same conversation (in another controversy), and it was under a little different circumstance.
   "But this is a good problem to have for our team -- for two guys to be wanting to go for the win like they are, that's all we can ask for. 
    "Myself, I'm so confident that one of the two of us are going to win that 600 next weekend...
     "It was a good meeting.  Kyle was fiery at the beginning but calmed right down at the end. 
     "I think it's just kind of his personality. Me, I'm a little more reserved and kind of quiet about it. 
    "It's just two teammates that happen to be going for a race win right there."
    The new Kyle Busch? That's what he himself proclaimed after winning Richmond two weeks ago. But Busch obviously has some temper issues to deal with.
    Hamlin, diplomatically, brushed it off: "That's Kyle in the moment...and he's said worse things about me, for sure, at other times. 
    "I told him my job as the leader is to do everything I can to win that race. 
     "This race, in specific, is a much different beast than a points race, and I think he understands that. 
     "From my standpoint, we're going to drive each other different, no doubt about it."
    Hamlin said they both understand the aerodynamics of the situation. 
    "We've seen it in years past -- guys suck each other around...guys running each other up the race track," Hamlin said.
   "But I felt like if Kyle had position on the outside, then I definitely should have given him the lane. 
    "I just basically took the air off (the nose of Busch's car), and, like he said, he was just dumb and didn't check up. 
    "It's just one of those things. 
     "The air is so important that if you've got the lead, then it's extremely hard for anyone to get around you.
      "I felt like if we couldn't get the win, then I probably should have just moved over and let him go, because it looked like he had a race winning car. 
     "That is the only thing I fault myself -- not understanding my race car that time."
     So things are cooled off?
    "We don't need to let it affect these team guys," Hamlin said. "They work with each other inside the race shop -- and the important thing for me is that everyone gets along. 
    "Right now everything is going good between us on the race track; we're both battling for race wins each week. (They together have won five of the tour's last seven points races.)
    "This is like the fifth or sixth time we've been beside each other with less than 10 to go...and this is not going to be the last time. 
     "What's good is that we have an understanding of how we race each other. 
     "One thing we do realize too is this individual race here is a different beast...so racing is always going to be a little different."

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