Denny Hamlin tweets $1M complaint from car during NASCAR race

NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin appeared to post on social media from inside his No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE after crashing out of Saturday's Cup Series race at Atlanta.

The opening race of the In-Season Challenge was chaotic, as Kyle Larson produced one of the saves of the season following a major wreck at the end of Stage 1, which ruled out Ryan Blaney. Another incident involving Hamlin occurred at the start of Stage 2, and he was later ruled out of the Quaker Stake 400 Presented By Walmart, eventually won by Chase Elliott as he had the last laugh after a 0.001 second near-miss. 

In total, 12 of the 40-car field were wiped out in the bracket-busting incident, as several high-profile stars missed out on a potential $1 million prize. Following the wreck, Hamlin scrolled on social media while waiting in his car and complained about the tournament structure.

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Hamlin was drawn against Ty Dillon in the In-Season Challenge bracket, but the wreck gifted his opponent a bye into the next round. Hamlin was forced to wait before leaving the track and was 97 laps down when he returned to the garage.

Dillon was on the lead lap with 95 laps remaining, meaning Hamlin was eliminated by default. Initially, Hamlin posted a selfie on X and captioned the photo: "Fun meter peaked."

Hamlin sarcastically summarized his frustrations, as after his elimination was confirmed, he posted: "NASCAR Playoffs 2.0".

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has already qualified for the NASCAR Playoffs, but Hamlin won't be in contention for $1 million after suffering elimination from the In-Season Challenge. Shortly after his tweet, Hamlin was back out on track and in the race.

He eventually called it a day not long later, placing 31st as he failed to finish. His day was ruined shortly after a Lap 69 restart, Hamlin and John Hunter Nemechek made contact and proceeded to collect almost half the field.

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"All of us were in the top line pushing off Turn 2, and some zigged, some zagged, most crashed," Hamlin said. "I don’t know. I was on the bumper of (Nemechek), and he was on the bumper of somebody else.

"We all were just pushing and speedway zigging and zagging, and we all crashed, so part of it. Now we go watch the rest of the race."

Hamlin claimed that he'd need to see footage of the incident again to make any judgments, but he was confident that the wreck wasn't caused by aggressive racing. "We weren't all perfectly aligned, and it started a chain reaction there," Hamlin added.

"I got into the wall then came across the track. I feel like it was just normal speedway pushing, and not everyone was perfectly aligned and these are the kind of wrecks we usually have."

Hamlin then admitted that his butt hurt due to sitting in the car for so long, which led to his social media activity. "My ass hurts, my butt hurts from sitting in the seat for so long and not having the distraction of running laps," Hamlin concluded. "Only good news is that I got to watch some of the race in the car."