Denny Hamlin is fairly amused with the thought of winning the 2024 NASCAR Cup championship in the midst of his team's — 23XI Racing — legal battle against the series and the most powerful family in all of NASCAR.
"Yeah, I would like to have that problem, truthfully (laughter)," said Hamlin last weekend. "I always say if you have an issue, you cross that bridge when you get there, but it is a problem that I would love to have, but I would understand the responsibilities of a champion and certainly, knowing what I’m representing, I think I would be able to do a good job of separating the two.”
The hearing to decide whether 23XI Racing will be able to keep their charters while the lawsuit is ongoing takes place on November 4 -- just days before the title-decider in Phoenix. NASCAR has made it clear that they don't want that to happen.
It's not been easy for Hamlin on or off the track lately, and his dream of winning his first Cup title in his 19th year of trying while facing off against NASCAR is beginning to look like a very difficult task. The most impressive part of his 2024 playoff run is the fact that he's still in it.
After losing nearly half his bonus points due to an engine penalty just before the postseason arrived, Hamlin was already in a position where there was no room for error. And yet, there have been many errors. Conservative strategies backfiring, multiple incidents, and a myriad of mistakes on pit road have plagued his 2024 playoff run.
Las Vegas was no different and the fact that he used a fuel mileage gamble to finish eighth after such a sloppy race was actually quite an accomplishment. The No. 11 pit crew struggled throughout the day and the car itself was not very fast. But 'okay' finish like that won't be good enough in this round. Hamlin is already 27 points below the cut-line.
“Not a clean day," admitted Hamlin afterwards. "That certainly sums it up. You’ll have that. We did the best we could to get the best finish. I thought Chris [Gabehart, crew chief] did a great job to get some sort of finish. Once we lost the track position early, he was doing the best he could to try to get it back through strategy, and then it goes long there, and we fall to the back. Just part of it.”
Hamlin continued: "We are not running quite as strong as we were earlier in the year, and we are definitely not as clean, execution wise, as we were. We will just have to clean it up and go to Homestead and try to win it.”
Hamlin advanced into this semi-final round of the playoffs in both 2022 and 2023, but missed the final four by single-digit margins on both occasions. The idea of him winning the title with this lawsuit ongoing in the background would be quite the dream outcome for Hamlin but for the time being, it is only that -- a dream.
