Well, here’s something you don’t hear every week.
It was quite an emotional win for Denny Hamlin.
Well, let’s walk that back somewhat. Frankly, yes, you do get emotional wins from Denny Hamlin. In recent years, quite a few of them. Except the emotions are of a different sort: Many fans voicing (and, um, signaling) their displeasure toward Denny, and Denny giving it right back.
Instead, Sunday at Las Vegas, Denny was thinking of his dad, Dennis, who’s been home in Virginia dealing with an undisclosed illness. Denny has talked often about his parents’ long-ago sacrifices to help his racing hobby become a passion and, ultimately, a job.
Parents dream big dreams for their kids in situations like that, but it’s hard to imagine Denny’s folks ever pictured him bringing home the 60th trophy from a career in the highest form of stock-car racing.
What’s more, that 60th career win clinched a spot for Denny among the Championship Four at Phoenix in three weeks, when he’ll yet again try to capture his first Cup Series championship.
It could make for some awkwardness on the Phoenix podium, but for a while Sunday, all of that was set aside. It’ll return, however, and we’ll get to that, and more, as we climb the gears …
First Gear: Playoff points tossed all around
As Moe Howard would yell at his fellow Stooges: “Spread out!”
And spread they did. Man, look at the playoff points after Las Vegas.
Entering the Round of 8, the top five drivers were within eight points of each other. After Vegas, that spread among the top five is 39 points.
Eighth-place is 55 points down, when a week earlier it was 28. This is the type of scattershot retrenchment you expect after Talladega, not a routine 1.5-mile oval.
With Hamlin secured a run for the championship in Phoenix, here are the other seven racers and where they now stand, relative to that fourth spot: Kyle Larson (+35), Christopher Bell (+20), Chase Briscoe (+15), William Byron (-15), Chase Elliott (-23), Joey Logano (-24), Ryan Blaney (-31).
Blaney entered the Round of 8 just two points out of first, and suddenly he almost certainly needs a win this week at Talladega or the following week at Martinsville. A blown front tire ushered him to the outside wall and saddled him with a last-place finish at Vegas. And no, it wasn’t the first blowout in Vegas history, but still, Blaney is very low on chips.
On the bright side, he’s has five combined career wins at these next two stops.
Chase Elliott didn’t have a blown tire, but a wandering one that nearly ruined his Vegas visit.
Second Gear: Denny Hamlin reaches 60 and all-time top 10
Hamlin’s 60th career win ties him with Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time Cup Series list.
Next ahead of him is Kyle Busch, with 63. It’s hard to imagine Denny, at age 44, climbing much higher on the list, since eighth all-time is Dale Earnhardt with 76. Another 16 wins is a lot to ask of a driver in his mid-40s.
Bobby Allison won eight times at age 44 and six times at age 45, then another handful before his career was cut short at age 50, just a few months after he’d won the Daytona 500. He was the exception.
Denny now has six wins and 14 top-fives in 2025, and no, it’s not the best statistical season of his 20 years of full-time Cup racing. He won eight times in 2010, six times in 2019, and seven in 2020.
He’s had multiple wins in 14 seasons, but remains the winningest all-time Cup driver without a championship. And again, if this is finally his year, it could get awkward when the NASCAR leadership contingent is handing over that big trophy.
Why? Let’s slip into our best bib-and-tucker and slide into the courtroom for a recap of current proceedings.
Third Gear: Meanwhile, in the courtroom …
Quick review: Denny Hamlin has spent his career driving for Joe Gibbs Racing but in recent years has also been a co-owner (with Michael Jordan) of 23XI Racing, which fields cars for Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Riley Herbst. That team, along with Front Row Motorsports, has spent a year embroiled in an antitrust suit against NASCAR.
A court date is set for early December, barring settlement, and to potentially facilitate a settlement, a judge has set an Oct. 21 date for a “settlement conference” with a mediator. Without a settlement, the judge will hear and decide on requests for summary judgement two days later, when he could potentially render a verdict before the Dec. 1 start of trial proceedings.
That Dec. 1 date may or may not have played a role in NASCAR’s recent decision to move its late-November awards banquet to two days after the Nov. 2 Cup finale in Phoenix. It’d be weird going through those motions mere days before a potentially seismic trial.
Fourth Gear: Buckle up, Talladega week is upon us
Next up is Talladega, and while bent sheet-metal is expected at NASCAR’s biggest superspeedway, we got a head start on crazy this past Sunday at Las Vegas.
We’ve seen some sights in 2025, but the eventual highlight reel will have to include William Byron, at full speed, ramming the rear of Ty Dillon, who was slowing to enter the pits coming off Turn 4.
Byron said he had no indication Dillon would be pitting at that time and also stated the obvious: “I wouldn’t have just driven full-speed into the back of him like that.”
There’s also rarely any warning at Talladega, but it’s not what’s up around the bend. At Talladega, all hell breaks loose on your immediate flanks, front and rear. Take a minute and go back up to the First Gear and look at the current point spread in the standings.
A week from now, it could look like we tossed all those names in a hat and dumped it out in a whole new order.
Or, as Chase Elliott said Sunday about the upcoming trip to Central Alabama: “Everybody’s got to go, so you better learn to like it real quick because it will be here soon.”
— Email Ken Willis at [email protected]
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