INDIANAPOLIS — Denny Hamlin never wanted to drive for any NASCAR team other than Joe Gibbs Racing.
A two-year contract extension may seal the deal.
On Friday, five days after earning his 58th Cup Series win, the 44-year-old Hamlin signed what he said would likely be his final contract extension. JGR officials only said the deal was for “multiple” years, though Hamlin noted he didn’t want anything longer than two years.
“Two years is what I was comfortable with,” said Hamlin, who leads the Cup Series with four wins this season in the JGR No. 11 Toyota, including last Sunday’s triumph at Delaware’s Dover Motor Speedway. “I wanted to make sure I gave them the proper time and make sure I commit to them for not one year but multiple years, to let them try to continue to build the program. I want to make sure I’m still at my peak form in my final year.”
There’s no indication Hamlin is slowing down as he seeks an elusive Cup Series championship — one of the few things he hasn’t accomplished on NASCAR’s top circuit. His 663 points this season are more than any driver outside the dominant Hendrick Motorsports stable; only Chase Elliott, William Byron and Kyle Larson enter the weekend with more points.
A win in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway would allow Hamlin to complete a career sweep of NASCAR’s crown jewel races. He has already won both the Daytona 500 and the Southern 500 three times each and the Coca-Cola 600 once.
“Adding another crown jewel would be big,” said Hamlin, who is set to make his 17th start at Indy on Sunday. “And then to have swept them all — I mean, certainly the names are very, very prestigious on that list, so it would certainly mean a lot to me. It would be just another feather in the cap.”
With 706 career starts in the Cup Series, all with JGR, he’s the longest-tenured driver in team history, even though he missed one race this year after the birth of his first son and third child. He ranks 11th in all-time wins among Cup Series drivers, and he also owns 244 top-five finishes, 369 top-10 results and 44 pole positions.
He is also a co-owner of a Cup Series team, 23XI Racing, which fields cars for Riley Herbst, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace. Hamlin’s team — the other co-owners are NBA legend Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk, the retired basketball star’s business manager — and Front Row Motorsports, which is owned by Bob Jenkins, are locked in a legal battle over antitrust allegations against NASCAR.
Reddick, who won the Cup Series regular-season championship last year, said Hamlin has a “very, very high racing IQ. I feel like the last couple of years, he’s done more sharing of that with everybody, with the platforms he uses. For me, he’s really helped me understand short-track racing. I feel like between him and Bubba, they helped me better understand what to look for in my car.”
And yet, Hamlin also acknowledged he’s not really ready to retire yet — and might not be in two years, either.
Instead, he wants to see how it feels to be out of the driver’s seat, knowing comebacks happen routinely in stock-car racing. If he has second thoughts, he might even return to JGR, a four-car organization.
“I really appreciate Denny and everything he has meant to our organization,” Joe Gibbs, the NASCAR Hall of Fame owner, said in the release announcing Hamlin’s extension. “It is just really special when you think about everything we’ve experienced over the past 20 years, from that first moment when J.D. (Gibbs) recognized his talent at a test session, until now. It is remarkable in any sport to compete at the level Denny has for this long and we are thrilled he has been able to spend his entire career with us.”
Hamlin’s decision, though, also came down to more than sentiment.
“I’d kind of like to see where I’m at two years from now, where the team’s at, what’s their Plan B, where they are with that, and then just how competitive I am, how good do I feel how much and how bad do I want it?” Hamlin said. “All those things are big, big, big factors in it.
“But I just want the ability to know I can win my last race. That’s the deciding factor.”