LAS VEGAS — Denny Hamlin has the most wins this season and now has the most time to prepare for the 2025 championship race.
Hamlin earned his 60th career victory in capturing his season-high sixth win Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a triumph that vaulted him into the Championship 4 in three weeks at Phoenix Raceway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver doesn’t know the other three drivers who will compete against him for the title Nov. 2. All he knows is this will be his fifth try in the one-race championship round since the current format started in 2014. The 60th victory tied him with Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time wins list and a championship is the only thing the 44-year-old Hamlin lacks on his racing resume.
“Is this my last chance to do it?” asked Hamlin, who has said his contract that runs through 2027 will be his last. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I just know I’m going to do the work, and I hope it works out.
“If it doesn’t, I’m going to be OK with it. I’ve had a season that far exceeded what I thought it would.”
The victory at Vegas, where he passed Chase Briscoe with four laps remaining, was an emotional one, with Hamlin’s father being ill and Hamlin tearing up over the final laps and his victory interviews.
“[He’s] just not doing well, not feeling well,” Hamlin said. “He’s the one that got me into racing, took me to a racetrack when I was 5, then made all the sacrifices financially to keep me going.
“They sold everything they had. We almost lost our house a couple times and just tried to keep it all going. So I’m glad he was able to see 60. That was super important to me.”
Hamlin has long repaid his family for their sacrifices over a 19-year career, which started with him finishing third in the standings in his first full season in 2006 in the original 10-race Chase. He has made the NASCAR version of the playoffs every year since then except for 2013. He was second in the standings in 2010.
Hamlin’s last appearance in the championship round came in 2021, the final race of the previous version of car. This will be his first championship appearance in the Next Gen car.
Team owner Joe Gibbs, who is in both the NASCAR and Pro Football Hall of Fame as an owner and coach, said he won’t have a long talk with Hamlin about trying to finally accomplish this racing goal.
“I just think for him, there won’t be a lot of talking about it because he knows everything’s at stake in this,” Gibbs said. “This has been his life. This is all he’s wanted to do, is race cars.”
Hamlin entered this season with a crew chief change he didn’t ask for as his crew chief Chris Gabehart was elevated to competition director and former Ty Gibbs crew chief Chris Gayle moved to Hamlin’s car. Gayle, who typically has worked with young drivers, has never advanced to the semifinal round in Cup, let alone the Champ 4.
“What will I tell him? We’re going to do everything we can, leave it there in Phoenix,” Gayle said. “Whatever happens, happens. Then we’re going to do everything on the frontside to get ready. I don’t know that I have the magic formula related to that, other than bring the fastest car I can, which is how I’ve approached all year.
“I haven’t gotten into mind games, what’s happened before. When he sat down with me before in the offseason, he mentioned 60 wins, trying to get to the Championship 4. He never once said ‘championship.’”
While Hamlin has the most victories of any driver this season, he might not be the favorite at Phoenix if one of the Team Penske drivers advances to the finale, a flat 1-mile track that seems to be in the Penske wheelhouse and where they have won the last three championship races with Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.
But Hamlin’s team doesn’t have to worry about the upcoming races at Talladega and Martinsville — he still competes but the team can solely focusing on getting prepared for Phoenix.
“Obviously, you elevate your mind and what you think you can accomplish as you go further along into the year,” Gayle said. “We’ve had such a good year, we feel like we should be a front-runner for the championship.”
His opponents will come from the other semifinalists, who either need a win at Talladega or Martinsville or have the most points to fill the four-driver championship-eligible field. Kyle Larson, who likely would have won the Vegas race until a bizarre late caution where William Byron ran into the back of a pitting Ty Dillon, sits 35 points above the cutline with races at Talladega and Martinsville remaining.
Christopher Bell is 20 points above the current cutline and Chase Briscoe is 15 points ahead of the current first driver out — William Byron. Chase Elliott is 23 points behind Briscoe, Logano is 24 points back and Blaney is 31 points behind. Both Byron and Blaney had their races end early because of wrecks.
“[Penske cars] will be crazy fast at Phoenix,” Larson said. “So if they don’t make it, I think it’s wide open. The 11 [of Hamlin] is the only one guaranteed in right now, so he would be the favorite.
“Hopefully we can get in there, because I do feel like you know that scenario where we have closed the gap a lot to them and maybe surpass JGR on our flat-track program.”
Logano, who has won three titles and won last year at Vegas to propel him to the championship, shrugged when asked if this makes Hamlin dangerous for Phoenix.
“Don’t know,” Logano said. “I don’t know if he’s ever been in the spot before.”
Hamlin hasn’t. And he understands that he has three weeks to think about accomplishing this feat.
“I’ll get nervous certainly over the next few weeks about it,” Hamlin said. “But I’m going to be nervous about the things that I control, not the other things.
“You guys have seen it. There’s been weird and crazy things that have kept me from winning a title or advancing to have a chance to. I’ve said many times, if you get enough chances, like eventually just the tides will turn. Did they start turning today? Maybe.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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