Following his third win of the 2023 NASCAR Cup season, Denny Hamlin declared, “It’s our year!”
Given his performance during the Bristol Night Race, where Hamlin led 142 of the final 146 laps, his second-place result at Kansas and the 177 laps he maintained at the point during the Southern 500 (prior to tanking due to a loose wheel), his bravado is justified.
Maybe this finally will be his year.
“I just feel like we’ve got it all put together,” said Hamlin. “We’ve got the speed (at) every single type of race track. Nothing to stop us at this point.”
Even a speeding penalty couldn’t derail Hamlin’s stellar run at Bristol. He still finished 2.437 seconds ahead of Kyle Larson.
Amid the crowd’s raucous disapproval of Saturday night’s victor, Hamlin waved his sword in the air—almost stirring the pot—having slain the competition at the Last Great Coliseum. He insolently remarked, “Hey, I beat your favorite driver…all of ‘em.”
Hamlin, 42, isn’t afraid to take on — and antagonize — his competition, whether it’s Larson, Ross Chastain, William Byron or even NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott.
On Saturday, Hamlin picked up an additional five Playoff points for the win. While Byron and Martin Truex Jr., hold a 25-point advantage over the cut line for the Round of 12, Hamlin sits third, 21 points above the cutoff.
“Obviously the first round is full of really good tracks for Denny and this team,” said crew chief Chris Gabehart. “Clearly, we were capable of winning all three races and just had situations keep us to only winning one.
“Texas, we tested there. Should have a great race. But you’ve just got to keep executing. That’s all you can do is move on to the next race. We’re going to enjoy this one. It’s a big one. We’ve had a tough couple of weeks mentally with the team to perform at such a high level and not get the wins.”
Hamlin is 0-17 while battling for the Cup title—0-10 since the Playoff format was introduced in 2014. He has advanced to the Championship 4 three of the last four seasons under the direction of Gabehart.
If you ask Gabehart why the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team is not batting 1.000 with respect to reaching the final four, he will quickly smirk, “We were hail melon-ed last year,” referring to Ross Chastain’s last-ditch effort at Martinsville Speedway that vaulted the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing squad over Hamlin.
Of the seven remaining races in the postseason, the only track where Hamlin hasn’t won is the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He has three wins at Texas Motor Speedway, where the tour kicks off the Round of 12 (on Sunday). Hamlin has two wins at (the) second weekend’s venue—Talladega Superspeedway. Should he advance to the Round of 8, the No. 11 JGR squad has scored a win at Las Vegas, three wins at Homestead and five wins at Martinsville—the penultimate race of the Playoffs.
Should he advance to the Championship 4 for a fifth time, Hamlin is confident he can finally close the deal.
“I don’t think I’ve been any better,” Hamlin said. “I don’t think our team has been any better. At our best, I know that we’re good enough.”
Gabehart bristles at the term “championship favorite” but shares Hamlin’s sentiment.
“Certainly, I think we’re a final-round favorite,” Gabehart said. “Then you get to Phoenix and it’s one race. But, yeah, we’re executing at a super high level. We have all the pieces put together to do it. Certainly, why not us?”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
