“There was a whistleblower”: Denny Hamlin speculates fellow NASCAR teams “snitching” on Joey Logano post illegal gloves penalty

Denny Hamlin has speculated that Joey Logano's illegal gloves were brought to the attention of NASCAR officials by a whistleblower.

Logano secured a front-row starting position at Atlanta Motor Speedway but was dropped to the rear and had to serve a pass-through penalty for wearing unapproved gloves. According to NASCAR, the gloves failed to meet the "SFI specification," violating section 14.3.1.1 in the rulebook. The webbed gloves were deemed to provide a competitive advantage by blocking the airflow.

Denny Hamlin discussed Logano's penalty post-race on his podcast Actions Detrimental, where he claimed that the #22 Penske driver was ratted out by fellow competitors. Hamlin believes Logano's rivals must have noticed the webbed gloves before the race and informed the officials.

Speaking on his podcast, the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver said the Cup Series was full of "snitches" who self-policed the sport.

"I’m willing to say there was a whistleblower," he said. "These teams tell on each other, for sure. For those of you who don’t know, teams — they call it a self-policing sport because when we’re sitting next to each other and watching videos of other cars — the NASCAR Cup Series is full of snitches. I mean, all over the place. They tattle tell."

Hamlin continued:

"If they see something that someone is doing that is illegal or skirting the rule, they’ll tell the tower right away. They’ll send that to John Probst (senior vice president of racing innovation) or Elton Sawyer (Senior Vice President of competition) and be like, ‘Oh, look at that.’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh, we’ll look into that.'"

The NASCAR Cup Series is an ultra-competitive sport where teams go to great lengths to find loopholes in the rules.

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Denny Hamlin feels "cursed" after his involvement in a wreck triggered by Joey Logano

The #11 JGR driver was involved in a trifecta of crashes in Atlanta, one occurring at each stage of the race. While racing at the front during the second stage, Joey Logano made a late block on Chris Buescher, resulting in a wreck that also involved Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin expressed his frustration on his podcast about that:

"The #22 (Joey Logano) pulled a late block on the #17 (Chris Buescher) on the last lap and freaking wrecked himself the #17 and me and I was top 5 again, coming into the end of the stage and got nothing out of it."

He further called himself "cursed," given that he was wrecked out at Daytona and then caught up in three incidents at Atlanta.

"Am I just generally cursed? Like we always bring it up about the end of the year just didn’t work out for whatever reason but like I’m tired of this shit, every time I’m in a good position somebody screws up right in front of me."

Denny Hamlin was classified 23rd while Joey Logano was credited with a 28th place finish in the race.