Copyright Sports Illustrated
As he continues to find peace with his latest heartbreak, which transpired a couple of weeks ago at Phoenix Raceway, Denny Hamlin has been attempting to slide back into offseason mode as he ramps up for his 21st attempt to chase a NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2026. Last Thursday, Hamlin participated in a unique event at Joe Gibbs Racing, the 13th annual Progressive Keys to Progress event, where he and legendary Coach Joe Gibbs handed out the keys to two brand-new Toyota street cars to veterans of the U.S. Army. For Hamlin, the event helped him put his loss on the racetrack at Phoenix Raceway in perspective. "Yeah, it is [keeping it in perspective]," Hamlin explained in an exclusive interview with Racing America On SI. "You know, back to work. You've got to just do the best you can to reset. I'll certainly need some time to do that. But generally speaking, this is the race hangover time. You've got to just take a little break, get a reset, get recharged, you know, it's just this year will probably take a little bit longer than years past." A big part of the reason Hamlin says it will take longer to push past the disappointment at Phoenix Raceway was because of how much effort he put in leading into the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race Weekend. As for what was different this time around, compared to his previous championship fights, Hamlin said, "Just a ton of screen time was the biggest thing. Just looking at every little kind of detail that I possibly could from a driving aspect." Hamlin spent a tireless amount of time working on the simulator heading into Phoenix, after he locked himself into the Championship 4 with a win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the opening race of the Round of 8 of the Playoffs. As he continued to dial into things for the championship race, Hamlin chose to completely overhaul his driving style at the 1-mile oval in Avondale, Arizona, in an effort to give himself a chance to capture the championship. "Really kind of changing my approach at that racetrack. Going there with an approach saying, 'I'm going to drive this specific way, whether it's right or wrong, this is what I think I need to do differently to have speed at this track,' and so, spending multiple weeks, changing my style at that track is what took so long and took quite a bit of reps in order to implement, but it was the right way," Hamlin noted. As Hamlin led a race-high 208 laps, and held the lead with three laps left in regulation, it looked like the championship would finally be his. Then, a cut tire from fellow championship contender William Byron led to a back-breaking late-race caution, which sent the race, that had been sewn up, into Overtime. "Everything was right, but it didn't work out in the end. It's one of those things, sometimes you go into Overtime, but the score wasn't even. You were up 30 to nothing, and you lose," Hamlin said of the finish at Phoenix Raceway. "And so, it's just, I don't know. It took so much out of me, it drained so much out of me, time-wise. And a lot of it, too, is because we had multiple weeks to prepare. If I had gotten in after Martinsville, I wouldn't have had all that time to spend on Phoenix, but yeah, it was tiring and grueling, which is why I feel the way I feel today." Hamlin says despite how his career turns out, the lack of a Bill France Cup on his mantle will not impact how he feels about his career, and specifically his 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff run. "To borrow from Carl Edwards, I mean, with five laps to go, I knew what it was like to be a champion. I did everything I was supposed to, and so, you know, 40 seconds or 50 seconds at the end deciding whether I win that championship or not has no bearing on my ability or what I'm capable of," Hamlin stated. "I just don't have the trophy sitting at home, but I know we were the best." Edwards suffered his biggest heartbreak in the 2016 NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, when a questionable late-race caution sent that race into overtime, a chaotic finish, where Edwards was crashed from the race lead. Edwards would surprisingly announce his retirement from NASCAR a couple of months after that heartbreak. Hamlin says he spoke to his former teammate in the aftermath of Phoenix Raceway, and while he doesn't plan to abruptly retire following his heartbreaking Phoenix race, it was important to gain the perspective from Edwards on the situation. While the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season ended in disappointing fashion for Hamlin, and the driver had to hang around in Arizona for a couple of days for the Awards Banquet following the sting of seeing Kyle Larson capture the championship, Hamlin did collect some funds for his foundation, which will go to a cause near and dear to his heart, thanks to securing the season-long Xfinity Fastest Lap Award. "We got a great donation from Xfinity at the banquet, I think it was $60,000 is going to go to the [Denny Hamlin] Foundation. That money will go right to Cystic Fibrosis research and development," Hamlin said. Growing up, Hamlin, who has a cousin inflicted with Cystic Fibrosis, admits that he didn't understand the ailment, which led his family member to take pills, wear a vest that shakes the mucus out of his lungs, and ultimately led to his cousin receiving a double-lung transplant. Once he grew an understanding of the disease, Hamlin say the decision of what to do with his platform as a professional athlete became very simple as he created the Denny Hamlin Foundation. "It was kind of easy for me, when we started the foundation almost 20 years ago, you know, when we thought about where we would put the resources, it was easy for me to pick that simply because it affected my family, and is something I feel passionately about," Hamlin stated. While he amassed six victories this season, which brought his career total to 60 in the NASCAR Cup Series this season, and he was able to secure some major funds for Cystic Fibrosis research, it was a grueling year for Hamlin, mentally, physically, and emotionally, as he also was battling the emotions of his father's health, which has sharply declined in recent years. Hamlin will try to spend as much time with family as he can this offseason, and if the schedule of the pending antitrust lawsuit that his 23XI Racing team and Front Row Motorsports have in December against NASCAR allows it, he'll try to get in a vacation of some sort. "I don't have any plans. Usually, I have some kind of plans at some point, but obviously, with the pending litigation and stuff, I don't know whether I'll be in town or not. So, that stuff is obviously kind of fluid," Hamlin said. "But I'm going to take some time and go on a vacation at some point. I certainly need it very, very badly. Other than that, just spending more time at home. Through the grind of the season, those who travel weekly in the Cup Series understand that you just don't get a whole lot of time at home. Being able to now make more of my daughter's volleyball games is going to be exciting for her. Molly she has gymnastics and stuff that I get to go see now. I'll just spend most of my time with them, and being a fan of them versus the other way around, like they are for me for 38 weeks." As he thinks back on the 2025 season, and looks forward to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, Hamlin's success this season can be tied to his tireless effort to improve his own race craft on the track, as much as it can be tied to the performance of Chris Gayle, who took over the crew chief duties of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing entry this past season. While Hamlin didn't initially seem excited about being assigned Gayle as his crew chief leading into the year, the two gelled nearly instantly, and Hamlin says he, and everyone else, got a chance to see just how talented Gayle really is atop a pit box. "Yeah, I was really proud of Chris, and how he took it as well. It was noted that he had options, and obviously, his first option was to stay here at Joe Gibbs Racing and work with me. I think it was -- we're finally seeing what Chris Gayle is able to do as a crew chief," Hamlin said. "No disrespect for anyone he's ever worked with, but those are really young guys. And the difference is that I'm able to send him in a direction of where I want my car, whereas he was always having to help the young guys learn and understand what they needed out of the car. There's just a big, big difference there in how you run your team based on the driver that you have." With Hamlin being a 20-year veteran behind the wheel in the NASCAR Cup Series, Gayle wasn't tied up in having to give his driver tips and tricks, and that allowed him to better focus on his own personal responsibilities as a crew chief. The end result, was a magical first season with Hamlin. "He's been able to really work on the small details and not have to worry about teaching me things here and there because I have so much experience. That's why this combination seemed to work really well, is that he knew that I handled all of the driver parts, and that he was able then to focus on giving me whatever I asked for and whatever direction I wanted that team to head down," Hamlin said. The loss of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship will sting for a long time, and Denny Hamlin will likely never fully get over the fact that he was just three laps away from that elusive first championship, before a late-race caution changed everything. But as he rests in the offseason, and prepares himself for the 2026 campaign, Hamlin is set up better to chase for championships than he's perhaps been at any point in his NASCAR Cup Series career. Recommended Articles
