Damon is not and has never been the PC child friendly MJ driver. He was a racer and I think that rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. Take a trip though any real Motorsport garage where big money is at stake and Damon would seem like an angel. Every series that has competition for million dollar contracts, sponsors, media trying to make a story, all while trying to beat other rival teams with the same expectations as yours results in super competitive personalities. Probably had good reason to trash talk Dennis' racing ability. Once he got out of his ancient PEI he and adam were the two fastest almost every weekend on every type of track.
Racers are a different breed, those who do it on talent rather than daddy's money/achievements are usually super competitive and care about only one thing and thats winning. Everything else isn't their problem, their job is to win.
Not saying their are not nice racers out there, but the number that have been rude, said bad things about other competitors, and a slew of other 'naughty' things far out number the nice ones.