Denny Hamlin divulges the unfortunate way karma sabotaged his Texas race

Denny Hamlin found himself in an unexpected DNF at Texas Motor Speedway, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver believes it all has to do with karma from the "horns down" gesture he made during the driver introductions. Hamlin's No.11 Toyota Camry caught fire by the end of Stage 1, resulting in his first DNF of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.

On Sunday, May 4, Hamlin's misfortunes began when he experienced a miscommunication over team radio that left him out on track while the rest of the field pitted for fresh rubber. Moreover, the No.11 driver was sent to the back of the field after he was caught speeding in a closed pit lane on lap 24.

As he was making his way forward from the setback, the final nail in the coffin occurred when his car's underbody blew out flames with six laps remaining in Stage 1. The cause of the fire is yet to be found, but early theories suggest an oil fire caused by a potential engine issue.

On Monday, Hamlin discussed the streak of bad luck on his podcast, Actions Detrimental, where he implied that his "horns down" gesture in front of the Texas crowd maybe the root cause of it.

"But you'd be surprised, actually, when I went from horns up to horns down, actually the crowd shifted there for a minute, like there was a few cheers that that weren't there before. So, I think that we're not necessarily right there in Texas territory as far as, you know, Austin, Texas. So, yeah, that didn't last long for me, eventually the karma caught up pretty quickly." Denny Hamlin said. (3:25 onwards)

The hand gesture is a disrespectful inversion of the "Hook 'em Horns" used by the University of Texas Longhorns. Denny Hamlin also mentioned that he meant to make the gesture if he'd won the race, but since he was not sure if that was a guaranteed case, he went for it anyway.

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Denny Hamlin reacts to his car catching fire in Texas

During a post-race interview, Denny Hamlin shared a first-hand account of his fiery mishap at Texas Motor Speedway. He spoke about the warning signs he experienced before the car "detonated".

"It was blowing up for a lap or so before it really detonated. I tried to keep it off to keep it from full detonating, that was they can diagnose exactly what happened to it. It's tough to say exactly what it is, but they'll go back and look at it and we'll find out in a few weeks," he said via Speedway Digest.

The DNF placed Denny Hamlin last in a 38-car field, but the result had no impact on his Driver's standings at third (338 points). Notably, this marked the JGR driver's second DNF from his 36 starts at the Fort Worth Track.