Denny Hamlin admitted that his team's future participation is 'TBD', noting that "there’s certain things that we’re going to have to navigate so I hope so.”
It's a staggering admission following the recent court loss where the teams filed a preliminary injunction aiming to keep their charters while the antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR is ongoing. The injunction was denied and the teams will appeal, but now they're facing the very real possibility of competing as 'open' teams in 2025. This comes with a significant loss of revenue, and none of their cars will be locked into any race.
It's a cloud over championship weekend where 23XI Racing is making its Championship 4 debut with Tyler Reddick.
'We just hope that this thing gets resolved…'
But it wouldn't be the first time a team has won NASCAR's biggest prize and then shut down.
"Furniture Row did it," noted Hamlin, who won the title in 2017, and then closed their doors following the 2018 season where they were the championship runner-up. "They ceased to exist after a championship. I think that depending who you ask, I think on one side they [NASCAR] could care less whether you’re here or not and for us, we certainly have got a lot of people that have put their heart and souls into this team and want to see it succeed.
"And certainly, we’ve got an obligation to our team to try to do everything we can to have a fair system. So, we’re just one of the ones that got stuck on the front line and so it’s part of it. Trust me, there’s nothing more we want than to win this weekend. Certainly, there’s a lot of emphasis on trying to win this race and Tyler’s [Reddick] is going to give it his best go. This is a really, really new team and certainly it was an accomplishment to get to this point.”
It's all unusual for Hamlin, whose appearance in court this week was his first since being 11 years old.
“Yeah, I mean, truthfully, I hadn’t been in a courtroom since maybe I was 11. I got sued. I was riding my bike as a kid and a car hit me and they ended up suing me. I know, they lost (laughter) […] It’s been a while. My adrenaline was pumping because obviously you hear the arguments and what not and of course we feel very adamant on our side of things.
He described a 'nervous' feeling on Friday morning as he waited for a decision from the courts regarding the immediate future of the their charters, noting: "I’ve poured a lot into this sport in multiple ways, and certainly financially over the last four years. I’ve put back a lot of the money I got out of it back into it and certainly all could be wiped away pretty quickly.
"Certainly, it’s a nervous time for me and we just hope that this thing gets resolved in a peaceful manner or in a correct manner to fix it. I’m just – it’s got its ups and downs for sure, but it’s difficult because you can’t control it right? I can’t rely on my instincts or things like that to change the outcome or the results. It’s just the facts are the facts. I’ve just never been a part of anything like this, but certainly hate that we’re in the situation that we’re in after everything that we’ve put into the support over the last four years.”
Denny Hamlin starts the season finale in 14th position; his teammate Tyler Reddick starts 10th as he aims to become a NASCAR Cup champion.
