Denny Hamlin Distances Himself from NASCAR's Big 3 as 23XI Receives Extraordinary Honor

In NASCAR, there is an old order. Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Team Penske, the Big 3, have won 18 of the 21 Cup Series championships since 2005. Between them, they field 11 drivers, share decades of institutional knowledge, and operate with financial and technical resources that most teams can only aspire to have.

So, when Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin launched 23XI Racing in 2020 with a single car and fewer than 25 employees, the expectation was that they would spend years learning to compete with that establishment, not challenging it. Six years later, though, the Sports Business Journal has nominated Michael Jordan for Sports Executive of the Year and 23XI Racing for Sports Team of the Year, and Tyler Reddick is leading the Cup Series standings by over 100 points.

Yet, talking to the media ahead of the NASCAR All-Star Race, it was clear that 23XI Racing’s latest accolade didn’t change Hamlin’s thought process or get to his head. Right from the get-go, he and his partner knew that they wanted to do things differently from what had been established. Or as Hamlin said, “we’ve wanted to be game changers”.

According to Hamlin, “I just think that it’s a testament to the people that we put in place, and again, it’s the puzzle that I’ve always talked about, right?

“My job is to put the big pieces of the puzzle in there and then let them fill out the small pieces to finish the thing off. And so it’s more of a testament of the people that we have, and you know, Michael and I get to get the credit for it, but truthfully, it’s a lot of people that put a lot of effort into it, from the HR department to everyone.”

And one of the many unconventional methods that 23XI Racing uses is hiring outside of NASCAR. Usually, motorsports are all about locality. But in 23XI Racing’s case, Hamlin believes that global experience and different opinions fare far better than the singular thought process of local members.

While he accepted that his team ultimately follows similar patterns like the Big 3 of NASCAR on some fronts, in the hiring process, it is ensured that 23XI Racing is able to incorporate the ideas from individuals all over the world.

“What’s different about us is that I think that we—lots of times—hire from out of the sport. So, people that are coming into the sport for the first time say, ‘In Germany, we don’t do that.’ Like when we race over here, we try things this way; we do things this way,” Hamlin said.

“And so it just opens up a lot of different questions for us when we are able to hire outside of NASCAR itself and attract those people to give us new ideas. And sometimes the answer is what the legacy teams have been doing for such a long time.”

Hiring outside the sport carries a certain risk, which has to be mitigated carefully. For example, the team dynamics need to be adjusted according to people from different nationalities and backgrounds. So Denny Hamlin’s idea of sourcing talent for 23XI Racing is a double-edged sword if not handled carefully. But it seems like Hamlin knows how to run his team without hiccups.

At one point, 23XI was dependent on its technical alliance with JGR to compete in the sport and leased its pit crews in its first season. But by 2022, Hamlin announced the team would train and field its own pit crews entirely. In 2024, Reddick won the regular season championship, the first for the team, and made the Championship 4.

Then, in 2025, the team raced the entire season unchartered after refusing to sign NASCAR’s revised charter agreement, won just once, and did so while its employees worried how the courtroom drama was going to unfold and whether it could fold the organization altogether.

Jordan and Hamlin responded by promising to pay all staff through 2026 regardless of the outcome. That vow steadied nerves and allowed everyone to focus on racing. The case settled on the ninth day of trial, securing permanent evergreen charters for every team in the garage. Now, that was a structural change to NASCAR’s business model that the Big 3 teams, who had signed the charter agreement under duress, benefited from without ever having to fight for it.

And today, the team is independently leading its operations and defeating JGR fair and square in the Cup races, showing how far the team has matured against rivals like Trackhouse Racing, which started its NASCAR journey the same year.

Clearly, Hamlin is inching closer to his ambitions day by day. He had also made his intentions clear to dominate the Cup Series field earlier this year.

“We just felt like we were the next team. Like the next, we’re the next elite team. We’re done with that,” said Hamlin on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “We’re trying to infiltrate that, the old guard that is taking over the sport over the last few decades from their commitment, obviously, their heritage of knowing their winning pedigree.”

And while Hamlin doesn’t believe the team is qualified enough to end up making the “Big 4” – thanks to the challenging short tracks – he remains convinced that sooner or later, the elites would have to fear what he’s so carefully curated with 23XI Racing.

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