As NASCAR continues to crack down on intentional wrecks on track, Denny Hamlin has offered a different solution. That being to bring back the concept of self-policing.

The discussion was prompted after the lap 47 incident at Chicagoland on Sunday, where Shane van Gisbergen hit the left rear of Austin Hill's car while entering turn 3. Many fans and analysts, and Richard Childress himself, called it revenge for Hill wrecking Gisbergen at San Diego.

While talking about the incident on the "Actions Detrimental" podcast, Hamlin urged the drivers and sanctioning body to bring back self-policing in NASCAR, where drivers can settle their scores on the track itself, which has been a part of the sport for a long time. 

"I am a very firm fan of self-policing," Hamlin said. "And I think that has to be a thing in the sport because if you can't punch someone in the face without getting a fine, and you know, they always keep you separated, security's in there, you got the teams getting involved. If you can't handle it off the racetrack, which I'm not really in favor of that, because there are other people. You got to let people self-police on the racetrack."

Elaborating on his stance, Hamlin said that intentional payback should be warranted and NASCAR shouldn't need to step in and penalize drivers for it.

"And this is how you self-police: you let someone know you f*** with me and you're going to get it. You're gonna get it. And so just think about that before you f*** with me, or you put me, or you wreck me, or you run into me. So this is what NASCAR racing has been for quite some time as a self-policing sport.

"And it just got into a weird spot over the last like five to six to seven years where we started talking about, well, these are deliberate wrecks, these are intentional wrecks, and we have to penalize that," Hamlin added.

Whether the sanctioning body takes up this suggestion from the three-time Daytona 500 winner remains to be seen.

Denny Hamlin weighs in on the Gisbergen-Hill crash 

One of the most talked-about incidents at the Eero 400 at Chicagoland was the Gisbergen-Hill crash. Hill wasn't happy with what happened and voiced his frustration post-race.

While talking about the incident in the aforementioned podcast, Denny Hamlin said, 

"SVG’s looked far more aggressive [than Zane Smith wrecking Carson Hocevar earlier in the race]. When he thought that Ryan Preece committed m***** to Ty Gibbs, I don’t know, this was … what’s above m*****? Premeditated? Yeah, premeditated, that’s a harsher sentence."

He further opined that the SMT data would clear NASCAR's decision-making process over the wreck.

"The data would argue that SVG went into the corner with no intent to slow up. It’s not like there was a hole there," Hamlin added.

In a short post-race interview on pit road, SVG apologized to Hill and RCR for ruining their race. As of now, NASCAR hasn't issued any penalty for SVG.

Read more on the Daytona Racing Digest! 

Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak