Las Vegas Winner Denny Hamlin Illustrates Why Family, Support and Love Are Just as Important as Speed and Winning

After 60 career NASCAR Cup wins, we knew Denny Hamlin’s 61 win would ultimately be a combination of joy and sadness.

There’d be smiles, hugs and tears – lots of tears – to both continue the grieving process of losing his father, but also to celebrate the joy of Hamlin winning not just for himself and Joe Gibbs Racing, but also for his family.

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When he was interviewed Sunday on the frontstretch after winning the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the camera didn’t lie: in-between the sheepish smiles of joy, Denny fought hard to contain his emotions, knowing the significance of what he had accomplished for the 61 time in his Cup career – but also the first without his father to hug or excitedly talk to on the phone as he did after each of his previous 60 wins.

Denny’s father, Dennis, was tragically killed in a house fire three days after this past Christmas. His wife and Denny’s mother, Mary Lou, was seriously injured in what investigators deem accidental, although the direct cause of the blaze remains undetermined – and may never be learned.

In some of his first public comments about the tragedy a few days later, Hamlin questioned whether he would ever be able to climb back into a race car after his No. 1 fan and supporter was so suddenly taken away.

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The reason for the younger Hamlin’s reluctance to race again is simple: if it wasn’t for his parents’ support – particularly Dennis – Denny would never have existed in NASCAR racing. Dennis was everything to Denny and vice-versa, helping him build his race cars over the years, driving him to tracks he’d compete in, taking out a second and then a third mortgage to finance his son’s budding career, and was chief advisor, mentor, and confidant to his son’s quest to become one of NASCAR’s best.

His father dedicated his life to Denny’s success, and Denny dedicated his career to his father

But in the end, Denny said it without even having to say it: his father knew the diehard competitor his son is, and if he could once again talk to his son after the tragedy, he undoubtedly would have been the first to encourage Denny to continue doing what he loves and the success he loves to achieve.

“I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving,” he admitted. “Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us.”

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Hamlin then continued, “The first race of every season that you can win is very gratifying. I don’t know what goes on in those two months. I’m no fool. I know my reaction’s deteriorating. There’s all kind of things that are deteriorating. Father Time is undefeated. Three months is a long time where it’s like, ‘Okay, am I still at the level that I was last year, especially to end last year?’

“Today confirmed that nothing was changed, which is really good. It’s a good sign. We’re still able to do it at a really, really high level. So it’s just gratifying to me that I’m still at this age (45) getting it done.”

Sunday’s win was Hamlin’s 61, passing Kevin Harvick for 10 on the all-time Cup wins list. While that triumph was important to Hamlin’s career record and racing resume, it paled in comparison to the fact that Dennis was no longer with us to once again celebrate his son’s success.

Is Denny racing with a special purpose this season: to honor his father with more wins and a Championship

While Denny hasn’t really said it publicly, there’s a strong likelihood that he’s devoting all of his efforts – and wins, obviously – this season to his father’s memory. It still stings how Hamlin, who was favored to win the 2025 Cup championship, wound up losing it to Kyle Larson in the final three laps of the season finale at Phoenix.

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As driven as he was to win his first Cup championship, Hamlin is likely more determined than ever to win that Cup crown this year – only it wouldn’t be for him, it would be for Dennis.

Watching Hamlin’s post-race interview with FOX, there was an incredible amount of emotion pent up in the air. But when the TV cameras turned toward Hamlin’s still-recovering mother Mary Lou (attending her first race since the terrible accident), Denny’s partner Jordan Fish, and their three children, all crying from a combination of joy for his win but also still raw from grief for Dennis, it illustrated once again something Denny has said numerous times over his career: no matter how many wins or championships a driver earns, there’s nothing more important than family.

Family rises and falls with every bit of good news and bad news in life, be it grief, drama, disagreements, celebrations, and more, but no matter what, they stay loyal – and that loyalty to both Denny and Dennis and Mary Lou once again showed clearly after Sunday’s race.

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“I mean, this is a family sport,” Hamlin said. “My family obviously had so much sacrifice to help me get here. Now that I’ve grown, (there will be) generations of Hamlins following me. It’s great Mom gets to see this.”

Hamlin then broke into a smile, adding, “I know Dad’s still saying, That’s my boy. Hell of a day (smiling).”

In a sense, Hamlin’s father’s death gave his son a sign of things to come when he gets to the point where he’ll decide to call it quits as a race car driver. But he’s not ready to do that just yet.

“Ultimately I’m still a competitor, right?,” Hamlin said. “Everyone’s got to go through the grieving process. There were a lot of different things through the off-season that were really, really tough. I mean, I showed up at Bowman Gray (for the preseason exhibition). I ran the race. Still just up until a couple weeks ago (I was) not fully locked in to what I need to do, got to do. That’s just natural. I mean, everyone has to go through stuff.

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“I think for me ultimately, I said it before, my promise to Joe Gibbs, that family, that I’d fulfill my obligations to them. Then the thrill of going out there and getting more wins. That to me is what drives me. It makes me work as hard as I do at this.

“Everyone goes through tragedies and stuff. It doesn’t change kind of who I am, and that’s a competitor that loves to go out there. This is my life’s work.”

In a sense, Dennis was in attendance Sunday at Las Vegas to watch his son win Again

In addition to paying tribute to his father by looking to the sky several times while celebrating on the frontstretch and later in victory lane, Hamlin enjoyed something that will be one of the biggest highlight remembrances of his career – how his kids climbed into his race car after the event, and he took them for a celebratory ride.

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“It’s awesome,” Hamlin said of having the fam celebrate his third victory at LVMS. “There was only one other time that I think Taylor got to ride in the car, then NASCAR took the trophy from me about five hours later (he said with a smile, recalling when he was disqualified several hours after winning the July 2022 race in Pocono due to improper taping). Hopefully we make this one official and move on.

“But yeah, I think it was Molly’s first time in the car. They stepped in there and were like, ‘Wow, it’s hot in here.’ I’m like, ‘Welcome to my world.’ It’s a good reality check that it’s not all nice and cozy inside that car.

“They weren’t here for 60 (his 60 win). You get FaceTime for 10 seconds. I got to go do more pictures, whatever, media. It’s cool when they get to see it and feel it. It’s something that they’ll remember for a long time. … Driving them around in the race car on the frontstretch was awesome.”

Now that the anticipation of how he’d react when he reached his 61 win and the first without his father present or just a call away, Hamlin – who moved up to fourth place in the Cup standings, 78 points behind leader Tyler Reddick — is ready to reach victory lane many more times this season.

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“When you have the tough days, it’s pretty crushing,” he said. “When you leave Daytona 500 finishing 31st (this year) and I’m looking back and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m already a race behind.’ It certainly puts the panic back in you.

“It’s great to win early. It gives us some momentum. But realistically, I look from last week to the next six weeks. We’ve got a bazillion wins at all these racetracks. In this group of races, I expect to win multiple. If we don’t, that’s where I get concerned.

“If we come here, lay an egg, don’t finish well, I’m concerned because we’re all going to have these weeks where we’re going to have mechanical failures, wrecks, things like that. If you want to win the regular season or be part of the championship picture when they reset it for the Chase, all these 26 weeks count.

“I’m certainly feeling better about the start of my season now.”

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Now it’s one win down, and hopes for many more to come for Denny

Hamlin would love to win another six races this season, like he did last year, or even more. Sunday’s triumph will definitely help him in that bid and lessen some of the times when he questions why he’s still doing this.

“There are Mondays and Tuesdays where I’m like, ‘I’m over it. I don’t know whether I just want to keep doing this grind over and over,’” Hamlin said. “It happens after you have the failures at like Phoenix where it’s like I spend all that time working, all that time studying, I ace the test and failed. That’s where it was, like, discouraging. Do I really want to do this again?

“So days like today, last night I was grinding still. I was working hours and hours and hours after practice was over to try to figure out how we could make our car better, communicating with the team on that.

“It feels good when you get the cookie at the end.”

And boy, did that cookie ever taste good.