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Denny Hamlin trying yet again to win his first Cup championship on Sunday at Phoenix
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
Denny Hamlin will say it over and over: The goal of the NASCAR season is to be one of the four drivers who has an opportunity to win the championship in the final race.
The sport is just too unpredictable in the current format to set the goal as winning a championship.
"That’s the goal is to get to the final four, and then one race — who knows?" Hamlin said prior to clinching his spot Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
A cynic would say that sounds like a driver who hasn’t won a title.
And it's true: Hamlin has not won a Cup title, despite 46 career victories and making the playoffs now 15 times in his career. NASCAR instituted the elimination-style, one-race championship event playoff system in 2014, and this will be the fourth time Hamlin has made the final race.
In 2014, he finished third. The past two years, he has finished fourth among the four drivers. His best opportunity came in 2019, when he seemed to have a fast car, but the team put a piece of tape on the front of the car, a move intended to help with the handling late in the race. But it ended up being too big a piece of tape, and it had the reverse effect.
"The last two years, I’ve done everything possible," Hamlin said. "I didn’t have nearly a fast enough car last year, and in 2019, we just put a big, ol’ piece of tape on the car. Neither one of those things is there anything I could do.
"I have just done the best of my ability and gave myself a shot. In 2014, we stayed out with nine laps to go, and that didn’t work out for us. So I’m confident that I’ve done everything I can do."
Hamlin enters the championship race Sunday at Phoenix Raceway with confidence. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has two wins this year but ranks second in laps led behind Kyle Larson, who has won a series-high nine races this season.
Martin Truex Jr., a teammate of Hamlin's, won the March race at Phoenix, and Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott enters the event as the defending Cup champion.
The highest finisher among those four drivers Sunday will hoist the big trophy. They don’t need to win the race. They just need to finish ahead of the other three.
"It's so hard to predict," Hamlin said. "This championship is made in one race. It's so different than it used to be.
"Our goal going into the year is to make the final four because it's really, really hard to predict what can happen in one particular race. ... I like our chances on a Phoenix-type track. That's for sure."
Hamlin finished third at Phoenix in the spring. At other similar tracks this year, with the same tire compound being used at Phoenix, he was second at both Richmond races and 10th at New Hampshire.
"The way we have been on the [high horsepower] tracks this year, we’re a lot more confident ... than we were last year," he said.
FINAL LAPS: Bowman secures OT win, Hamlin upset post-race at Martinsville
Hamlin’s team owner, Joe Gibbs, knows something about winning championships, having won Super Bowls as an NFL coach and Cup titles as a team owner.
"That comes with all pro sports," Gibbs said of the one missing piece on Hamlin’s résumé. "We know that down through history, there's been a lot of great players that haven't won championships, Super Bowls, NASCAR championships.
"It’s just part of it. We've had great drivers that are in the Hall of Fame that did not win a championship."
At 40 years old, Hamlin probably has at least a few more years left to try to win a title. But at some point, the opportunities won’t be there, and he might have to live with the what-ifs.
Then again, considering that his three Daytona 500 victories and his win total make him a lock for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Hamlin doesn’t need a championship to cement his legacy as a great driver.
"Denny probably answered it the best last year, when he kind of said he's kind of at peace with what he's been able to do," Gibbs said. "He's won Daytona 500s, won a bunch of races. ... I think he's at peace with it.
"But also, you just know he has a burning desire and is going to give it everything he's got on Sunday."
What to watch for
With the four drivers vying for the championship not earning any stage points, those four will focus on having the best finish possible on the 1-mile track.
As we broke down Monday, all four drivers have reason to believe they will be in the mix Sunday. Truex is the most recent winner at Phoenix, Elliott won there a year ago, and Larson and Hamlin have dominated the season when it comes to laps led.
As far as the Xfinity Series, Austin Cindric passed Noah Gragson on the final lap to win the title last year (Gragson wasn’t part of the Championship 4).
Cindric, Gragson, AJ Allmendinger and Daniel Hemric are the four drivers this year. Only Cindric has won a Phoenix race, and he has won the past two. But Gragson does have a crew chief (Dave Elenz) who has won Xfinity titles with Tyler Reddick and William Byron.
In trucks, none of the four championship drivers has won a Phoenix race. But that doesn’t mean they won’t run well. John Hunter Nemechek has a pair of seconds, Zane Smith finished second in his only Phoenix start, Matt Crafton has two top-5s in his past three starts at the track, and Ben Rhodes has a best of fourth.
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Thinking out loud
NASCAR ordered Kyle Busch to undergo sensitivity training after he used the R-word. That was an appropriate directive and consistent with NASCAR's consequences for others who have used that word.
Some want to argue that if Busch is sanctioned for use of the word, then Hamlin should be sanctioned as well for dropping an F-bomb on live television in his postrace interview. However, while both could be considered offensive, what Busch said is derogatory and ridicules people. Hamlin’s word is obscene but does not insult anyone. That difference is significant, and NASCAR made the right decision on both.
Next Up: Next Gen
On his weekly "The Dale Jr. Download" podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave some of his impressions of the car after doing about 40-50 laps at Bowman Gray Stadium.
He said the sidewall of the tire doesn’t flex as much, which could lead to more spins, such as Tony Stewart spinning twice during the tire test Oct. 26 at the same track.
Earnhardt said, "You’re going to hear drivers say things like: I had no warning. I can’t feel it. I can’t tell when it’s going to spin. I’ve got a ton of grip, and all of a sudden I’ve got none."
That’s not a bad thing.
"That is a good challenge, I think," Earnhardt said on the pod. "It’s not a fun thing as a driver. It’s not going to be a great experience to have to wander into that unknown and learn that and adapt to that, and you don’t want to destroy cars trying to do it."
Social spotlight
They said it
"It’s cool that we get to race for our first championship. Hopefully, we can get it done." — Kyle Larson
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!
