"Silence on the radio”: Denny Hamlin reflects on his Ryan Blaney "bad news" before windfall of good fortune 

Denny Hamlin has opened up on his final stage radio silence stemmed before the turnaround of the disappointing affair at Talladega. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver witnessed a roller-coaster performance, before finally rounding up a tenth-place finish.

Hamlin started his YellaWood 500 race from eighth but, after losing a four-wide battle on Lap 3, he lost over 30 track positions and fell to P39. Moreover, during the second stage's final lap, when Alex Bowman wrecked Ryan Blaney, the cascading effect collected the JGR driver's #11 Toyota as well.

The 54-time Cup Series race winner sustained damages but returned to the tri-oval. However, during the Lap 171 pitstop, it was discovered that the ill effects of Blaney's crash took over Hamlin's Toyota, as the front-end damage altered the steering angle. It further led to the veteran driver being unable to capitalize on drafting and dropping to 32nd.

Nonetheless, luck knocked on Denny Hamlin's door after Brad Keselowski and Austin Cindric's contact resulted in a 28-car pileup. The JGR driver escaped the chaos and climbed 20 spots in the exchange. As a result, he emerged from what could've been a disastrous outcome to a rather satisfying P10 result.

During the post-race conversation with NASCAR, Hamlin pointed out that the damage from Blaney got magnified and that there was silence on the radio, hinting at "bad news." He said.

“Silence on the radio. I just assumed silence is bad news, and I knew that we were dead last of the cars that were running. I think that the damage that we had from the Blaney incident, just it really got magnified once we got to the tail end of the pack, and then we lost the draft because we just weren’t fast enough. So yeah, just … it was looking grim. And then all of a sudden, you know, I had some good luck,” Denny Hamlin said.

The #11 Toyota driver's rear-of-the-pack run proved beneficial as he was a "mile and a half away" when the pileup ensued.

"I don't know what he's thinking": Ryan Blaney slams HMS rival that spiraled him along with Denny Hamlin's NextGen car

Even though Denny Hamlin's Toyota sustained damage on the front from the Stage 2 wreck, he battled at the superspeedway until the end. But that wasn't the case with Ryan Blaney's #12 Ford Mustang.

After starting fifth, the Team Penske driver ran inside the top 5 and inched closer to securing the valuable stage points. But to open room for a better stage finish, Alex Bowman bumped into the defending champion. However, the "shi**y push" sent the #12 Ford drifting to the outside wall, collecting Hamlin and Ross Chastain. The Trackhouse Racing driver and Blaney succumbed to a DNF, while the HMS driver settled in 16th place.

Ryan Blaney was infuriated with Bowman's move and slammed the #48 driver for wrecking the "fu*k out" of him. He said (via Bob Pockrass on X).

"We were in the middle lane, I don't think it was terrible, probably still around fifth or sixth, and 48 just drove straight through me in the tri-oval. Just wrecked the fu*k out of me, I don't know what he's thinking," the defending champion said (0:09).

Placed fourth, Denny Hamlin will enter the Round of 12 finale at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course with a 30-point surplus, while Blaney, despite the destroyed race, savors a 25-point cushion.