NASCAR Through the Gears: Denny Hamlin shocked, Chase Elliott not, and what’s a Hyak?

Over the decades, NASCAR’s annual awards banquet has been held in Daytona Beach, New York City, Las Vegas and Nashville. Beginning this year, they opted for convenience and held it this past weekend in Charlotte, where most drivers and teams are based.

Some news was made during the weekend, some was made just prior, but all of the blow was made since we last gathered here a week ago.

Let’s go through the gears and make up some ground …

First Gear: RFK not immune to expansion; 23XI also adds a third wheel

A pair of two-car teams have officially announced expansion plans for the 2025 season.

Ryan Preece, freshly out of work due to the closing of Stewart-Haas Racing, will become a teammate to Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher at Roush Fenway Racing.

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Preece, a 34-year-old Connecticut native, previously raced three full-time seasons with JTG-Daugherty Racing (more on that group shortly) and the past two with Stewart-Haas. Jack Roush, the R in RFK Racing, hasn’t had a three-driver lineup since 2016. Do you remember that trio? Answer below.

Meanwhile, Michael Jordan, part-owner of 23XI Racing, took a timeout from legal proceedings to add Riley Herbst as a third driver for that team next season. Herbst won the Xfinity Series’ season finale in Phoenix, his third win in five full-time seasons in that series.

Why add a third team during ongoing litigation? Well, this isn’t just a sport, but also a business, and Herbst brings the coveted Monster Energy sponsorship with him to a team already swimming in marketing leverage due to Jordan and another co-owner, Denny Hamlin.

Herbst is from the family that owns the “Terrible Herbst” chain of nearly 200 service stations in the West, mostly in Nevada. We’re guessing there’s possibly a Monster-Terrible Herbst business connection. That’s racin’, more often than not.

Oh, the Roush trivia. Jack’s last three-man lineup in 2016: Greg Biffle, Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. More Biff news below, too.

Second Gear: Ho-hum, Chase Elliott wins NASCAR Most Popular Driver award again. NMPA also honors Greg Biffle

The annual Elliott Family Award went to Chase for the seventh straight year.

Not exactly a lot of drama here.

Officially, it’s known as NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award, given annually to the driver who gathers the most fan votes at season’s end. It’s managed by the National Motorsports Press Association.

This is the 23rd combined win for Chase and his dad Bill, whose 16 wins are the most ever, but not by much. In between Bill and Chase, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won it 15 times. Lee Petty won the first two years the award was handed out, in 1952-53. Lee’s son Richard won it eight times.

The NMPA also gives out the honor in NASCAR’s other series. This year, Justin Allgaier won in Xfinity and Rajah Caruth in Trucks.

The NMPA also manages the annual Myers Brothers Award, which honors outstanding contributions to stock-car racing. This year it went to Greg Biffle, who actually made outstanding contributions to mankind.

In the wake of devastating Hurricane Helene damage throughout western North Carolina and other areas, Biffle loaded his personal helicopter with supplies and beat a continuous path to the region, eventually becoming the face of “Operation Helidrop.”

Third Gear: Denny Hamlin gets a surprise

Denny Hamlin is getting a new crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, and to hear Hamlin tell it, he was blindsided by the replacement of Chris Gabehart. The pair won 22 races together over the past six seasons.

It doesn’t sound like Denny was in favor of the move.

“I certainly was shocked, that’s all I’ll say,” he told assembled media at last weekend’s banquet in Charlotte. “The first few days was a shock, but I’m moving on,”

Gabehart, who will become JGR’s competition director, will be replaced atop Hamlin’s box by Chris Gayle, a JGR crew chief in Xfinity and Cup since 2013. He spent the last two seasons as Cup Series crew chief for Ty Gibbs.

Fourth Gear: JTG Daugherty gives way to Hyak, but what’s a Hyak?

As promised above, an update on JTG Daugherty Racing.

It’s gone.

Well, the signage is gone.

It’s now Hyak Motorsports. Rhymes with kayak. Gordon Smith became majority owner a year ago and brings the name from his Hyak Maritime, a marine services corporation based in Oregon.

Hyak? It means “fast” in the Chinook Jargon language of the long-ago Pacific Northwest.

JTG Daugherty has fielded a Cup Series team since 2009. Two of its three wins have come in the past two seasons — including the 2023 Daytona 500, with Ricky Stenhouse driving. It was a two-car team from 2017-21 but a single-car operation the past three years.

Longtime co-owner and former NBA all-star Brad Daugherty remains part of the ownership group, along with Ernie Cope and Mark Hughes.

— Email Ken Willis at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Michael Jordan grows, Denny Hamlin shocked, Chase Elliott again