Why Denny Hamlin’s Gateway Win Could Be Step Toward Elusive Title

MADISON, Ill. — Denny Hamlin counts down the number of races he likely has left in his NASCAR Cup Series career.

Assuming that the two-year contract extension he recently signed would be his last, that gives Hamlin 80 more races to win. He sees his win total — which increased to 59 with his playoff victory Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway (known as Gateway) — and sets his goals for victories accordingly.

Under that theory, he would also have started counting down the opportunities left to win that elusive Cup title. That would be three.

But the 44-year-old Hamlin doesn’t look at it like that. He just can’t get himself to count down and set the goal for him to win a championship in the elimination-style format, with the last 11 years having a one-race final round to determine a champion.

“There’s certain races that I do have countdowns for,” Hamlin said, noting he has not won a Brickyard 400. “Championships isn’t one of them. Obviously, it’s well-documented that I want to get the wins, and I feel like that will carry its weight long after.

“When you compare me to someone that’s maybe got one or two — maybe three championships — and half the wins, I don’t think that person’s better than I am.”

Hamlin led a race-high 75 laps, including the final 25 circuits around the 1.25-mile oval, to capture the victory Sunday and automatically advance to the quarterfinal round (Round of 12) of the NASCAR playoffs.

He entered the race already well on his way to making it to the next round, but the victory allows him to not worry about elimination next weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. For the seventh consecutive year (and 11th in the 12 years of this format), Hamlin has advanced to the quarterfinal round.

At age 44, Hamlin is the oldest driver in the playoffs and the most experienced with 20 full-time Cup seasons and 713 career starts.

“I’ll tell you what’s impressive about Denny, is his work ethic,” said team owner and Super Bowl winning football coach Joe Gibbs. “He … really works hard at everything. I would certainly hope he’s got his chance, for sure.”

Hamlin has just 27 starts with his crew chief Chris Gayle, who took over the No. 11 team this season. While Gayle had been a crew chief at JGR, he had not worked day-to-day with Hamlin, and he said that his work ethic has been impressive.

“Not being involved in it, I didn’t know how much he took pride in that,” Gayle said. “He will tell you, he wasn’t that way five, six years ago. The amount of time he puts into it.

“But whether it’s simulator, even if it’s texting at 10 p.m. at night … we have a Slack channel with me and the engineers and spotter. We’re getting random texts with things he’s thinking about,” Gayle said. “I assumed he might be off duty right now, and not really. He’s still sitting there in the bus looking at stuff.

“I think those are the things that I did not realize from the outside, how competitive he is, at really everything. But I see it on this side of it.”

There’s a good reason for it. 

Drivers have had to change how they can find an advantage. And that’s because in 2022, NASCAR went to a system where the teams buy the parts and pieces primarily from a single-source supplier. Now teams can see telemetry data from all the cars, including how much throttle and brake Hamlin uses and where.

“You used to be able to build speed in your cars that separated you from the competition,” Hamlin said. “Now with everything so similar, how else am I supposed to set myself apart from everyone else?

“I’ve got some talent, but I feel as though the working part of it is how I separate myself.”

Hamlin then said it isn’t just working on studying data on how to get better.

“Washing machines work real hard, too. But doesn’t mean they’re always productive,” Hamlin said. “You’ve got to know what to look for. You’ve got to identify it. Then you have to go to work to fix it.

“That’s where I feel like I’m good at, is identifying the problem first, all my problems essentially. My job is to find all my flaws. Then it’s my job to go fix them on the race track.”

For Hamlin, he now has five years when he has earned five or more wins. This is his first five-win season since 2020.

“I’m a results-based person,” Hamlin said. “When I can come out here and race against guys like half my age and be able to beat them, like, that’s very gratifying for me. … That will be the toughest part about hanging it up.”

Make no mistake, hanging it up after 2027 without a championship will leave at least a little bit of a hole. But Hamlin swears he has put that aside to focus on victories.

He ranks 11th on the all-time win list. He is only the seventh driver to win multiple races after 700 career starts. His 59 victories have now come on 20 different tracks (this was just the fourth time the Cup Series has raced at Gateway).

Hamlin ranks fourth all-time with 14 playoff wins. He has won races in the 10-race playoffs in 10 different seasons. 

“My results every year in the playoffs are better than it is in the regular season,” Hamlin said. “My average finish, all that stuff, always better in the playoffs. 

“It’s just we haven’t won that stupid, freaking last race in the season that crowns the champion.”

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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