“He was just so happy and he always tells me I’m the best, no matter if I win or not, he always says I’m the best,” Hamlin said. “He’s a big hype guy and I sat in his garage and talked with him, he’s got all my old memorabilia and it’s just good to reminisce. He’s a reminiscent guy and right now I am just cherishing those hours that I have with them each week.”
Larson is the only driver with a previous championship. Byron is back in the championship race for the third consecutive year, while Briscoe is making his debut in his first season driving for Gibbs.
Hamlin isn’t sure if the other drivers would be happy if he wins, but he suspects good friend Larson might be OK with it. Larson told The Associated Press if he doesn’t win, he’d be pleased with a Hamlin championship.
“He’s a deserving champion and nearing the end of his career, so if I couldn’t win, I’d love to see him because you’d think he’d have one on his resume. He deserves it,” Larson told the AP. “I could see how (his dad) absolutely gives extra motivation, and I think sympathy goes a long way. It’s not going to stop me from wanting to beat him, but there’s a lot of reasons a Denny Hamlin championship would feel good.
“I truly think everybody in the sport would be happy, probably even the folks at NASCAR.”
See, Hamlin drives for Gibbs but teamed with NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan in 2020 to form 23XI, the team that launched in 2021. They didn’t like the deal offered after two years of contentious negotiations on new charter agreements, refused along with Front Row Racing to sign the agreements, and sued instead.
The lawsuit is contentious and ugly. Mediation so far hasn’t worked, but talks continue as NASCAR claims it very much wants to settle before the Dec. 1 trial.
Hamlin — backed by Jordan’s resolve not to give in — is happy to let the case go to trial. He says NASCAR chairman Jim France shakes his hand before each court proceeding, that he’s treated fairly at the track by NASCAR officials, and doesn’t believe NASCAR will try any tricks to interfere with his ability to have an equal shot at the title.
But even if NASCAR wanted to enter some gamesmanship with the No. 11 team, Hamlin has a history of his own self-sabotage in these situations.
This is realistically his sixth wide-open look at the title, and he’s notoriously squandered them all away: Hamlin spun in the 2010 finale, had a bad pit stop in 2014, overheated because the team put too much tape on the front grille in 2019, and then strategy or lack of speed on the No. 11 Toyota cost him in 2020 and 2021.
This year is his first back in the championship four in four seasons, and comes in a year in which he’s won a series-high six races and performed extremely well with new crew chief Chris Gayle, who was forced upon him in an offseason reorganization at Gibbs that pushed Chris Gabehart, the crew chief who has extracted the most out of Hamlin in these later years of his career, into a management role.
Hamlin was outspoken about the change he never asked for and didn’t have great confidence in Gayle. But he left it up to Gayle to find his footing with the No. 11 and now Gayle is farther in the playoffs than he’d ever been before.
Hamlin now feels some regret over his harsh criticism when JGR first took Gabehart from him and has learned to trust and feel extremely comfortable with Gayle.
And, hopefully, win that elusive title and then return to North Carolina to again sit in the garage with his dad and talk about the race. A high school friend of Hamlin’s plans to watch Sunday’s race with him.
If Hamlin does win, the talk inside the garage with his dad will look much different.
Jordan in 2024 gave Dennis Hamlin an autographed cigar enclosed in a glass case. It came with a note that said “Break it when we win the championship.” Dennis Hamlin explained it in an episode of the Netflix series “NASCAR: Full Speed.”
“I’m supposed to break that and smoke that cigar. That’s what I’m going to do,” Dennis Hamlin said on the show. “I’d give everything I have, every car in this garage, the house, whatever, if I could make that happen.”
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
