No’s 50, 100 and 600
Denny Hamlin has been after No. 50 for a while. He was going to leave no one spared to get there and in a fitting sense, he picked up his 50th career NASCAR Cup Series victory on Sunday in Pocono.
This was the spot for win No. 1 in his rookie season back in in 2006 and now he joins some elite company with 50 trips to victory lane in NASCAR’s premiere series. He joins Richard Petty (200), David Pearson (105), Jeff Gordon (93), Bobby Allison (84), Darrell Waltrip (84), Cale Yarborough (83), Jimmie Johnson (83), Dale Earnhardt (76), Kyle Busch (63), Kevin Harvick (60), Rusty Wallace (55), Lee Petty (54), Junior Johnson (50) and Ned Jarrett (50) with that many wins.
It was also his 69th career NASCAR win in general as he also has 17 Xfinity Series triumphs and 2 in the Truck Series, passing Matt Kenseth for 14th all-time.
“I mean, stuff like this doesn’t sit in for a while,” said Hamlin. “Actually exchanged texts with Kenseth over the week. We were just reminiscing about old races. I told him, I was like, I was definitely filling him up about how great he was. He was a great teammate. The wins that he had. He was so underrated. I told him, I was like, That’s one thing that we’re always guilty of, is not appreciating it in the moment.
“When you retire and you got a bunch of time, you’re sitting there on your rocker on your back porch, you’re thinking about, What have I accomplished, right, in the sport?
“These things take a long time to sit in. They really do. We’re in the heat of the moment now. I mean, I’m answering questions about whether what I did was fair or not. Gimme a break.
“It takes time. I never thought I’d get an opportunity in the Cup Series. Luckily J.D. Gibbs took a chance and Joe Gibbs took a chance on me nearly 20 years ago. To get my 50th win, it comes down to the track that I got my first, it certainly is special.
“Like I told you yesterday, I knew every weekend I go into it thinking, Man, this would be the perfect weekend for it, because there’s always the right time to win.
“But, I mean, there’s just little things. My old car chief, Spider, that works at Joe Gibbs Racing, found in his old toolbox my grandmother’s St. Christopher. I get in my car for practice, and it’s sitting on my dash. I’m like, I hadn’t seen that thing, I thought it was lost. My mom would put that in there before the race on the dash. I sat down and said, Well, we’re winning this weekend.
“Those things don’t happen on accident, like… Just really happy to win it for the team, the whole team. Chris and his team on the pit box. The guys in the war room, the guys in the fab shop. I’ve been really lucky to be part of an organization that carried me for many years to many, many victories, like a lot.
“Not everyone gets the opportunity to go from racing late models to racing for Joe Gibbs Racing in 18 months in the Cup Series. It’s hard to do, it really is. But luckily they believed in me, gave me time to get going, and the rest is history.”
Speaking of career wins, Kyle Busch made a late race pass on Corey Heim to score the 100th career win for Kyle Busch Motorsports.
It was a significant number for him too.
Eerily similar, both winning moves came in Turn 2 with Hamlin and Larson’s battle and Busch sneaking by former teammate Heim.
Also, the win for Hamlin on Sunday was Toyota’s 600th in the process.
“It’s special, for sure,” he said. “I remember, getting I think their 100th Cup victory at Loudon, New Hampshire, a long, long time ago.
“Milestones are always big. To have 600 wins across the three series, I mean, it’s unmatched. What they do to invest in this sport from the grassroots to the Cup Series is unmatched. You can see it at your local dirt track. You can see it at your weekly racing series. They are all in on NASCAR.
“To be part of that type of organization and that type of manufacturer certainly means a lot from my standpoint. I was nervous in 2008 when we switched over, right? We had a lot of success before that.
“The Joe Gibbs Racing team thought that this was the best move for them. Obviously they made the right decision because there’s no other manufacturer that performs on a per-car basis like they do.”
Feuds
We saw 3 separate run-ins on Sunday for which sparked some feuds and war of words following. The most significant was the one between Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson. Both are friends off the track. But that could now be taking a strain for actions on the track. For the second time this year, they had a late race dual that sent Larson from the lead to out of race winning contention.
It happened on the final lap in Kansas and now in the closing laps at Pocono.
“(Denny Hamlin and I are) friends,” said Larson. “Yes, this makes things sh—- and awkward, whatever, he’s always right. All the buddies know that he’s always right. So, I’m sure he was in the right there as well. It is what it is. I’m not going to let it tarnish on track, but I am pissed. I feel like I should be pissed.”
Larson says that Hamlin is always the one calling the other in their friendship apologizing of an on track incident.
Hamlin feels otherwise.
“That’s not true. He’s ran me off a bunch of road courses and called me and said sorry,” Hamlin said. “I said, I’m going to stand my ground next time.”
Larson made mention that it was a similar move Hamlin pulled on Ross Chastain for payback in last year’s race. He didn’t know what payback could be coming to him for that maneuver.
“Same move he made to Bubba. Did he mention that or no?” Hamlin fired back in reference to their Vegas spat last Fall.
Hamlin feels like he didn’t show Larson any disrespect in that late race move.
“We’re racing for the win. Are you shitting me?” he said. “For sure. I mean, if I’m going to give anyone the respect, it’s Kyle Larson just because I respect him as a race car driver, and I think he’s probably the best. Certainly he’s got my respect. But, damn, I mean, we’re all racing for a win. I guarantee you, roles reversed, it goes the same way.”
Hamlin actually issues with two HMS drivers over the race with Alex Bowman and Larson too. He maintains that he never touched either in the process.
“I’m not here to defend anything. I put both those guys, the 48 and 5, in an aero situation,” Hamlin continued. “Didn’t touch either one. How can you wreck someone you don’t touch?
“They make a decision to either let off the gas and race side by side, or hit the gas and hit the wall. I mean, I put ’em to those decisions. I didn’t overshoot the corner. I was behind. I tried to get position on him, knew it was going to be tight off of two, but always made sure I left a lane or more, more than a lane.
“It’s the same, these Next Gen cars, for whatever, you get in that spot near the car on the outside, it sends them very tight. It just tightens their aero balance. Everyone knows it. Kyle is one of the best aero blockers in our field.
“I knew once he got the lead and it was green, there was no way I was going to go around him, so I backed off and just waited, tried not to burn up my shit for a restart later because he knows how to put you in a situation to just kill your car.
“We waited. We pounced at the right time. He didn’t get his right sides clean, drove in the corner just too far, let us get beside him. I thought we were going to race it out off of two. He got in the fence.”
That’s just one part. Ryan Preece ran over to Corey LaJoie’s car post race for an expletive laced rant. Then there’s former teammates Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick for which Dillon crashed hard and threw his helmet afterwards at Reddick’s car.
“I heard (Dale Earnhardt Jr.)’s replay, said that I came down a little bit. Felt like I was holding my own,” Dillon said. “He was at my left rear going in there, I knew we were three-wide. I think I’ve got the right to at least hold my lane. I mean, I’ve got to turn at some point to get down. Brad (Keselowski)’s on my outside, maybe a half-lane up. Tyler drove it in there. Obviously, I feel like he drove it in deep enough to where he had to come up the track into me. We can look at SMT and see the little, fine movements that we make, but (I) felt like that was not the time to do that.”
Hamlin The New Bad Guy?
Prior to this season, the most vocal driver fans booed in driver intros was always Kyle Busch. However, since he’s joined RCR, those boos have waned some. The new bad guy may very well be Denny Hamlin.
He’s had run-ins with 3 of the 4 Hendrick Motorsports drivers now and those are the more popular drivers in the field.
From Chase Elliott’s incident with Hamlin in 2017 at Martinsville, to Alex Bowman on the same track in 2021 to two issues this season alone with Kyle Larson (Kansas, Pocono), Hamlin is now receiving the black hat from the fan base.
I mean, I’m just too old to care. Had I gotten another 20 years ahead of me, I get it,” he responded to being asked about being the new “bad guy” in NASCAR.
“Fandom doesn’t give me trophies. Fandom doesn’t do the job for me. In my career, just had some pivotal moments getting into guys when they were super popular, I just kind of wasn’t.
“I’m okay with it because the fans are passionate about what they saw. I think if you were a Denny Hamlin fan, and there was that many, then maybe you’d hear the same thing.”
With being where he is in his career with 50 wins now and multiple trips to victory lane in the Daytona 500, is he welcoming on being the villain?
He has an opinion on a lot and is a nice breath of fresh air that isn’t afraid to stir shit, nor dish it. That can ruffle feathers and he’s open to that. But to be the hated guy in the room?
“I don’t know. I never really resonated with fans for whatever reason,” he said. “I got here on hard work, the old-fashioned way. I’m just not that likable, which is okay. I mean, I think I’m just not one of those good ol’ boys, right?
“I’m myself. I am. Try to treat people really well, do the right things, let the fans cheer for whoever they want. But as long as they’re making some sort of noise, it’s okay.
“I mean, I don’t think anyone likes to be disliked. I don’t know. I mean, no, I don’t try to do anything to lean into it, for sure. I think it just kind of happens naturally, to be honest with you (smiling).
“Some of the questionable incidents, like with the Chase thing, that stirs the things up, right? Me and Chase get together, we crash at Charlotte, it just fires the people right back up that, like, I’m a bad guy.
“I just think that it’s just part of it. I think fandom, it’s a crazy thing, like it really is. I’ve noticed the further away they are, the more boos there are. When they’re up close, they’re actually very nice. I mean, they are. It’s so different, like, walking out versus someone that’s on the other side of a fence.
“It reminds me of, like, social media. The further you can get from face-to-face interaction, the more hateful you can become. Kind of you just need to look at someone on social media when they’re hateful, look at their posts. They’re hateful to everyone. They’re just an unhappy person.
“I don’t fault the fans for not liking me because there’s people in sports that I don’t like. I’ve never met ’em. I root for the other team. So when they root for the other team, and that team doesn’t win, they think I’m responsible for that team not winning, you see the reactions that you do.”
23XI Racing, Toyota Find Groove Again
Toyota went through a stretch to where they had won 4 races in a 7 race stretch. Over the next 7, they had just 1 win. But, over the last two weeks, they’re 2-for-2. That’s expected though.
Toyota came into to Loudon reeling.
In Atlanta, they never were expected to contend. They’ve won just twice in the Peachtree state and have failed to reach victory lane there since 2014. They’re 2-for-the-last-18 in Talladega and 1 for the last 8 at Daytona.
However, they came to Loudon to where they should be contenders and boy were they ever. From a front row sweep to Martin Truex Jr. sweeping both stages and taking a dominating win, they looked the part.
As they should have.
Same for Pocono. They were equally as strong there too. They showed their might with another win. Now, heading to Richmond, it’s another strong track for them.
The momentum is back. Martin Truex Jr. has 6 top 5 finishes in the last 8 weeks. Denny Hamlin has 4 top 7’s in the last 7.
Even 23XI Racing has found their footing.
Tyler Reddick’s five finishes enter Loudon were 35th, 33rd, 30th, 28th and 27th.
Bubba Wallace’s five finishes were 30th, 17th, 15th, 31st and 25th.
They both qualified in the top 10 in Loudon and finished 6-8. In Pocono, they were 2-11.
Harvick Surging
Kevin Harvick is also finding his groove again too. With just 1 top 5 finish in 12 races entering Loudon, he’s since finished 4th in the last two weeks. Now, he heads to tracks coming up over the next 2 weeks to where he won these races last season too.
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