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It was hours before he would win the 60th race of his career, tying him for 10th all time with Kevin Harvick, and Denny Hamlin was in the drivers meeting for Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas.
A win here would guarantee him a spot in NASCAR’s championship race, give him another chance to fill in the one blank page on his resume; despite all he has accomplished in the sport Hamlin has never won a championship, and he was going over everything he needed to do to make sure he was ready.
“I have a mental checklist that I go through before I leave the bus for the drivers meeting,” Hamlin said according to the NASCAR.com website. “I check all the things I think are going to be important today (Sunday).
“One small thing just kind of slipped through the cracks. Maybe I was distracted, I don’t know,” Hamlin continued. “I was so antsy during the drivers meeting thinking ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get out of here because I’ve got to get back to the bus and look at something.'”
Hamlin paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “It would have just…I don’t think I could have…It would have mentally bothered me the entire race had I not gone back and looked.
“Then I would have said, ‘How did you let that slip? How were you not prepared for this? Had you known this, you would have been in a better position to win.’ It’s just the way my brain works,” Hamlin explained.
There are many reasons why, hands down, Hamlin is the best driver in the sport despite the fact he will turn 45 in November, shortly after the NASCAR Cup championship is determined at Phoenix.
But his biggest edge is preparation and execution. Nobody prepares for a race more meticulously then Hamlin, who, among other things, spends countless hours on the simulator each week. And that gives him the ability to adjust and execute on the track better than anybody else.
Which is why, at a time when a lot of drivers have hung up their helmets or are just riding around because they are no longer competitive, Hamlin is still charging to the front, still winning races – six, in fact, more than anyone in Cup this year.
But for all of that, the blank page is still there, the championship that has eluded him. And it has seemed farther away then ever since the advent of the Next Gen car in 2022, with Hamlin being eliminated after the round of eight each of the last three years.
So this will be his first shot at the title in quite a while. And while he shows no signs of slowing down, Hamlin knows he only has a limited number of opportunities left to fill in that blank page. And he doesn’t want to waste this one.
“I don’t get nervous anymore (about winning the championship)” Hamlin said. “But at some point, I will think about it. Is this my last chance to do it? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
“I just know I’m going to do the work and hope it works out,” he continued. “If it doesn’t, I’m going to be OK with it. I’ve had a season that far exceeded what I thought it would,” he added.
“I don’t think I’ve been in the championship four in the Next Gen era (he hasn’t, as has already been pointed out). I can’t sit here and make false promises and things like that. I don’t have the answer (as to whether he can win or not),” Hamlin said.
“I’m going to try as hard as I can. Maybe I’ll get lucky,” he concluded. Or maybe he won’t have to be lucky. Maybe being the best driver in the sport will be good enough, and this time, he’ll finally get his chance to hoist the trophy. Because trophy or not, everybody in NASCAR knows who the champion is.
NASCAR NOTES
No race this week. The Cup cars are at Talledega, a super speedway, and Old Guy Sport does not count super speedway races in its standings because who runs well and who wins is purely determined by luck, not skill. You have to avoid the “big wreck” and be in the right lane at the right time on the last lap and the drivers and teams have virtually no control over any of that.
Last week’s OGS Las Vegas picks: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Chase Briscoe, 3-Kyle Larson. Last week’s Las Vegas winner: Hamlin. OGS season record after 28 races, 13-14 (no Pocono pick), .481.
OGS competition index top 10 after 28 races: 1-Hamlin 652, 2-Briscoe 507, 3-Larson 490, 4-Christopher Bell 473, 5-Ryan Blaney 409, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 368, 7-William Byron 364, 8-Chase Elliott 244, 9-Bubba Wallace 186, 10-Joey Logano 185.

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