Bubba Wallace vs. Denny Hamlin could be our first real feud of the 2018 NASCAR season

In this case, it’s a mix of words and on-track actions that have stirred up the first ill will of the new NASCAR season.

Bubba Wallace never figured to be the quiet type of rookie that Erik Jones was last year, just driving around putting up results without comment. He’s too outspoken for that, and now he appears to already have potentially landed himself in a bit of a tiff with Denny Hamlin.

The crux of the potential feud is Wallace’s comment from his post-Daytona 500 interview, when he quipped that Hamlin, “might need to take some Adderall for that one” after the two drivers made some contact after the checkered flag. As NBC Sports explains, that was a reference to Hamlin appearing on the popular Pardon My Take podcast by Barstool Sports and telling the hosts that 70 percent of NASCAR drivers use Adderall to help them concentrate, a statement that Hamlin later explained away as an ill-advised joke.

But Hamlin apparently doesn’t find anything funny about jokes about his joke, as Wallace told “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that he and the No. 11 Toyota driver are still hashing out their differences via text message.

"“At the garage, he was upset with me over the comments I made about something he was joking about, which shouldn’t have been joked about. All in all, that’s alright. We’re actually texting each other right now, we’re still not happy. I’m OK, he’s not. We’re racers, and we’ll go to Atlanta and be battling each other.“I told him we’ll be racing together for a long time so I wanted to step out and reach out and clear the air. We’ll see how long it takes to officially clear the air.”"

It’s savvy of Wallace to be the one who reaches out to try to put differences aside since he’s the Cup Series rookie. At the same time, Hamlin needs to own his Adderall comments the way Kyle Busch does when he says things others perceive as outrageous. That is, if people come back at you for saying something, it’s the price you pay for putting yourself out there.

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Of course, there’s always a little more flaring of tempers at the restrictor plate tracks, and things tend to calm down when the series moves on from Daytona. Then again, Kyle Busch took a swing at Joey Logano last year at Las Vegas, so you never know.

We don’t expect to see Wallace and Hamlin getting physical, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if this particular issue isn’t completely finished just yet.