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Should NASCAR suspend Chase Elliott for Denny Hamlin incident?

NASCAR's most popular driver ran into its most vocal driver, and something's got to give.

Just before the halfway mark of Monday's rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600, Denny Hamlin crowded Chase Elliott into the wall on Turn 4 of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Elliott recovered, then appeared to turn down into Hamlin, ending the day of both drivers.

A furious Hamlin spat anger in a postrace interview. “It’s a tantrum and he shouldn’t be racing next week,” he said. “Right rear hooks are absolutely unacceptable. I don’t care. It is the same thing that Bubba Wallace did with Kyle Larson (in 2022). Exact same. He shouldn’t be racing. It’s a tantrum.”

Elliott pleaded innocence, saying he was a victim of equipment failure after hitting the wall. “The 11 put me in the fence, and once you take the right sides off these things it’s kind of over,” Elliott said. “Once you hit the wall in these things, you can’t drive them anymore.”

Later that evening, Hamlin went full CSI, using in-car data to prove his point and undercut Elliott's. "His steering came back to the exact same position it had previously after we came off the wall," Hamlin tweeted. "Cranked the wheel 4x harder left (just prior to the collision) than he did making any corner through the whole day. Bullsh*t move."

Turning a fellow driver and then proclaiming innocence is a time-honored NASCAR tradition, best exemplified by Dale Earnhardt's famous "rattle his cage" moment with Terry Labonte at Bristol in 1999. In days past, NASCAR would bring both drivers in for a little talking-to for the cameras, with the unspoken presumption that the two would settle it on the track at an unspecified future date.

These days, NASCAR exercises more regulatory authority, and in this case, there's direct precedent for a one-race suspension, which Hamlin referenced in his postrace interview. Last fall, Wallace turned Larson in Las Vegas in what was a clear retaliatory strike:

Interestingly, Wallace used the same rationale as Elliott for the turn, also claiming his steering was awry after being forced into the wall. NASCAR suspended Wallace for a race, citing its rule that calls for punishment for any driver who acts to "intentionally wreck or spin another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from competition as a result." The Wallace incident was the first suspension since Matt Kenseth took out Joey Logano in 2015 in retaliation for a prior on-track incident.

Elliott's preeminent status in the sport poses a dilemma for NASCAR. On the one hand, he drives significant fan interest and perhaps even ratings, as evidenced by the effects of his recent six-race layoff due to a snowboarding injury.

"Whether you like somebody, don’t like somebody, get along with somebody or don’t — everybody has a piece of the puzzle that they fall into," Kevin Harvick said in April. "And Chase, for us, he’s our biggest star, and he’s the guy who needs to be here every week for it all to make sense currently."

On the other, NASCAR can't afford to be seen playing favorites, especially with a driver as influential and vocal as Hamlin involved on the receiving end. This week will be an interesting one at NASCAR HQ, with ramifications for the rest of the season.