Denny Hamlin’s friends greeted him at the airport with a champagne shower as soon as he stepped down the steps of his plane – and for hours afterwards drove to the winning streak at Pocono Raceway – in celebration of his 50th career NASCAR Cup win.
Let’s put this milestone in perspective.
Yes, with three Daytona 500 wins, crown jewel wins at the Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500, and expansion into the team trait, Hamlin was already on his way to the Hall of Fame.
But 50 wins in cup victories catapult him into the air. It’s the NASCAR equivalent of 3,000 hits and 500 homers in baseball that puts Hamlin on the shortlist of the true elite.
Consider that in the 75 years of NASCAR racing, only 14 other drivers have reached that mark, and all but three have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Of those three outside Jimmie Johnson is on the ballot this year, and Kyle Bush And Kevin Harvick will get there safely.
The only caveat: Hamlin and Junior Johnson are the only non-championship 50 Cup club.
Hamlin, 42, is still aiming for the first title without spending much time reflecting on his accomplishments.
“When you retire and you have a lot of free time, you’re sitting in your rocking chair on the porch and you’re thinking, ‘What have I accomplished in this sport?'” Hamlin said. “It takes a long time for these things to take effect. They really do.”
Hamlin could have celebrated his 50th win earlier this season Kansas Had it not been for the Pocono win last year kicked out by NASCAR – He was the first winner since 1960 to receive a DQ – because his Joe Gibbs Racing team broke the rules. He reached 50 points in Pocono, where he set a record for the seventh time. He won his first two cup races at Pocono when he won the 2005 season as a rookie.
It seemed fitting that Hamlin hit two milestones at Pocono, still in the #11 Toyota and still driving for Gibbs. That kind of continuity over a period of almost 20 years is practically non-existent in NASCAR.
“I never thought I would get a chance in the Cup Series,” said Hamlin. “Luckily, JD Gibbs took the risk, and Joe Gibbs took a risk on me almost 20 years ago. To get my 50th win depends on the track where I got my first win. That is definitely something special.”
“Special” is one way to describe the win.
Kyle Larson had a few more, mostly unprintable, words to Hamlin.
Larson, who had already lost a last-round fight to Hamlin in Kansas this season, seemed poised to fight for the win at the 400th mile in Pocono. Possibly Hamlin had the slightest contact, causing Larson to slam into the outside wall, clearing Hamlin’s path to the finish line.
Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan, stood his ground and never had any contact with Larson.
Larson insisted he was being nudged and, not politely, dismissed the move as inappropriate, especially given that the two are good friends.
“I didn’t do that to Denny,” Larson said. “I don’t think I deserve to be run over before I ever get to the wall.”
Hey, at least Larson didn’t throw a helmet at Hamlin like a castaway in disgust Austin Dillon did it with Tyler Reddick earlier in the race.
Hamlin slid out of his Toyota and was booed by a sold-out Pocono crowd – the largest of the range since 2010 – who thought Denny had done something dirty. Hamlin brushed off the boos – he wasn’t a villain, he insisted – and said it was just clean and tough racing down the track.
“We waited. We took a tumble at the right time,” Hamlin said. “He didn’t clean his right side, he just went too far into the corner, let’s go alongside him. I thought we were going against each other. He got into the fence.”
Long considered along with Mark Martin as the best NASCAR driver not to win a championship, Hamlin heads to Richmond to chase the number 51 and perhaps get closer to signing a new contract with Gibbs.
Gibbs, who lost and has two-time Cup Champion Kyle Busch to Richard Childress Racing at the end of last season Martin Truex Jr. talks about retirement remained confident he could negotiate a deal that would keep Hamlin beyond this season.
“We work on everything in our place,” Gibbs said. “We know Denny will be here.”
This is where Hamlin wants to stay.
“Not everyone has the opportunity to move up from later model racing to racing for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Cup Series within 18 months,” he said. “It’s hard, it really is. But luckily they believed in me, gave me time to get started and the rest is history.”
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