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NASCAR: Hamlin fumes over Blaney Window Net issue

Posted by AR1 staff

Denny Hamlin was ticked off with NASCAR over their inconsistent application of the rules on Sunday night.

NASCAR had just put out a caution flag right before eventual winner Ryan Blaney was about to take the checkered flag. A NASCAR official later admitted putting the caution flag out at that time was a mistake. Blaney unlatched his window netting because he thought he had won. He tried to re-latch it as the race went green for two overtime laps, but was never able to.

“You can’t change the rules. Why? Because you feel bad for the guy? I’ve had race-winning cars for the past four weeks, and I’ve had stuff happen to me. That doesn’t mean they’re going to say, ‘Well, you should have won the race, so we’ll give you the win.’ It doesn’t matter. You can’t make up rules,” Hamlin said.

“I don’t want charity. I just want to play by the rules,” Hamlin said. “I think they just had a moral dilemma instead of playing by the rules.”

“It was about to get real bad for us,” Blaney told FS1 after the race. “Everyone thought the race was over, I already had my window net down. I do want to thank NASCAR for letting me kind of fix it and not make us come down pit road.”