by Patrick Zier | Apr 30, 2026 |
Denny Hamlin is always one step ahead of the game. Maybe not physically anymore, but mentally for sure. As the Cup series heads for Texas this week, Hamlin will be looking for his second win of the season.
And if he gets it, it will be No. 62 in his career, putting him one behind ninth place Kyle Busch, who has 63. That Hamlin, who turns 46 this November, is still at or near the top of his game despite his age is remarkable.
Most drivers are just hanging on once they hit their 40s if they’re still driving at all. There are exceptions, such as Kevin Harvick, who won 29 races in his 40s, but not many.
“I mean, it’s gratifying because I saw, like, the legendary Mount Rushmore guys, I’ve raced against them. I think at least two on Mount Rushmore I got to race against and I know how good they are,” Hamlin was quoted on NASCAR’s website after winning earlier this year at Las Vegas.
“I also saw at the end of their careers, when they got my age, their performance changed for whatever reason,” Hamlin commented. He was talking about Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, both of whom raced well into their 40s and, in Johnson’s case, beyond.
Gordon’s last big season came when he was 42 and won four times. Johnson, who has turned 50, hasn’t won a race in seven years although he still competes sporadically for Legacy Motor Club, a team he partially owns.
“Harvick is kind of the one that sticks out to me,” Hamlin said. “He was still doing it at a high level at this age. I don’t know when he stopped winning,” Hamlin added. “Maybe 46-ish, 47-ish, I’m not really sure.
“That was, like, motivation to me,” Hamlin said. “Okay, it’s possible. Not everyone ages the same. But that gave me hope, that, like, I think I can still do this.”
What sets Hamlin apart is the fact that he has one of the most introspective and analytical minds in NASCAR. His ability to look at himself objectively, to discern his strengths and weaknesses as a driver, enables him to make adjustments in his driving style that keep him competitive.
At least in part, Hamlin credits advances in technology for helping him stay sharp.
“I think data and analytics probably played a role in that,” Hamlin said. “I’m a very analytical person. I’m a very structured person. What data and analytics allowed me to do was identify my weaknesses, then allowed me to shore up those weaknesses.
“Before that, you’re kind of just going by the seat of your pants. If you want to get better, you have to go over to Matt Kenseth’s garage or Tony Stewart’s garage and ask ‘How are you driving turn three?’
“When we started sharing data and stuff like that, while it was negative in some ways because my information got out, it was also a positive at some racetracks where I wasn’t very good,” Hamlin commented. “It was a double- edged sword.
“I think I really embraced it,” Hamlin continued. “Okay, here’s the tools I have to identify my weaknesses, now what am I going to do about it? How can I fix them (his weaknesses) and what do I need to work on that will give me the best results?”
Going into the race at Texas, Hamlin sits second in the Old Guy Sport competition index behind Tyler Reddick, who drives one of the three cars co-owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan.
Reddick, off to a very hot start, has 210 points, Hamlin 193. The OGS competition index is used rather than the NASCAR system because the NASCAR system places too much emphasis on finishing races rather than competing in them.
And even though he turns 46 later this year, Hamlin will be one of the guys to beat for the championship. And while he may be almost twice the age of most of them, he might also be almost twice as good.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Texas: 1-Ryan Blaney, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner at Texas: Joey Logano. Top five at Texas last year: 1-Logano, 2-Ross Chastain, 3-Blaney, 4-Larson, 5-Erik Jones.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport picks: No picks last week, OGS does not count the superspeedway races (Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta) in its standings because luck, and not team performance or driver skill, is most important in determining the outcome.
OGS Kansas picks (race prior to Talladega): 1-Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Chase Briscoe. Kansas winner: Reddick. OGS record after seven races: 4-3.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Reddick 210 points, 2-Hamlin 193, 3-Larson 150, 4-Blaney 143, 5-Christopher Bell 124, 6-Ty Gibbs 123, 7-Chase Elliott 102, 8-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-William Byron 46, 10-Chase Briscoe 45.
OGS competition index top 10 at intermediate tracks (tracks most like Texas): 1-Hamlin 117, 2-Reddick 115, 3-Larson 67, 4-Bell 33, 5-Briscoe 31, 6-Carson Hocevar 21, 7-Bubba Wallace 10, Austin Cindric 10.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 19, 2026 |
Sometimes, being born with a silver spoon in your mouth isn’t that great. You can choke on it. Ty Gibbs, the grandson of Joe Gibbs, can tell you all about that.
The elder Gibbs owns one of the most – if not the most – competitive teams in NASCAR. Ty Gibbs is in his fourth fulltime season driving for his grandfather and recently won his first Cup race at Bristol.
But from the start, he has had to listen to a lot of outside noise. In 2023, Gibbs took over the car driven by Kyle Busch, one of NASCAR’s all-time greats.
While the official word was that they simply couldn’t reach agreement on a new contract, many felt that Busch was eased out in order to make room for Ty Gibbs.
The whispers, and sometimes outright accusations of preferential treatment, continued from there, culminating last year when Chris Gabehart, formerly Joe Gibbs Racing’s director of competition, and Gibbs got into a bitter law suit.
At one point, Gabehart claimed Ty Gibbs got special privileges, like not having to go to competition meetings, because he was the owner’s grandson.
For his part, the younger Gibbs has mostly chosen to ignore his critics, pretty much keeping to himself and staying off social media. But he discussed the issue on NASCAR’s media site following the win at Bristol.
“I truly have a passion and love for racing,” Gibbs commented. “People can say what they want, can say false things. I don’t really have an issue with it.
“I’m not big on social media. I just love racing cars. I’m in a blessed position to do this, trying to maximize my resources. I really love it. It (racing) overcomes that (the criticism).” Gibbs has not let his detractors get him down. It took him a while to win his first race, which only added to the pressure. But he was good with it.
“I don’t care about them,” he said. “I guess it’s something for them to focus on. After today (the win at Bristol) I guess they’re going to have to focus on something else.
“I feel like I knew I was capable of doing it (winning a race),” Gibbs remarked. “It’s obviously about putting it together. Me and Tyler (crew chief Tyler Allen) knew the whole way it was going to end up where it is now. I think we both had the same mindset about it.
“I’ve stayed after it (trying to win) the whole time,” Gibbs continued. “Obviously people are going to say false things, like how I wasn’t present at meetings. I’ve been the same the whole time, just to clear that up.
“We’ve had a ton of fun this year,” Gibbs went on. “Tyler has been such a great crew chief. People are going to stir stuff up in the media. I might not be the most-liked person, so everybody’s going to jump on it.
“Tyler is a very mentally strong crew chief,” Gibbs said. “To have him as my guy means a lot to me. He has my back, I have his back. We’re both young guys chasing it (success) so we stuck together threw it (the hard times). “People can doubt us as much as they want until we get in the spot to do it. We hammered down and won.
“Because they don’t have much going on, people are going to talk,” Gibbs said. “That’s what’s going to happen. We’ve been in all the meetings, hammering down, working hard, pushing teammates to the win like last year at Talladega, stuff like that.”
In the fall race at Talladega last year, Gibbs got behind Chase Briscoe and helped him stay in first place.
“I’ve always had fun racing,” Gibbs said. “I think that’s taken out of context (that he didn’t enjoy it). I think I truly enjoy the position I’m in, obviously, being around such a great group of people is so much fun.
“These guys love racing as much as I do, or even more, and I know I love it a lot. Having that is super important.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my team. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Tyler (Allen). Tyler is the best person I could work with and there are a lot of other people involved, too,” Gibbs concluded.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Kansas: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Chase Briscoe. Last year’s winner at Kansas: Kyle larson. Top five at Kansas last year: 1-Larson, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Dave Blaney, 4-Briscoe, 5-Alex Bowman.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Bristol picks: 1-Ty Gibbs, 2-Blaney, 3-Hamlin. Last week’s Bristol winner: Gibbs. OGS season record: 3-3.
OGS competition index after six races: 1-Reddick 158 points, 2-Hamlin 151, 3-Blaney 143, 4-Gibbs 123, 5-Bell 115, 6-Chase Elliott 102, 7-Larson 96, 8-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-William Byron 46, 10-Joey Logano 22.
OGS top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Kansas) 1-Hamlin 75, 2-Reddick 63, Keselowski 63, 4-Elliott 41, 5-Byron 34, 6-Blaney 31, 7-Bell 24, 8-Carson Hocevar 20, 9-Larson 13, 10-Gibbs 10, Austin Cindric 10.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 17, 2026 |
Byrum Brown knew it was on him. His South Florida Bulls had struggled most of the first half, but so had highly favored Florida. Both teams had won their season openers, and both were now trying to maintain momentum as they slugged it out in Gainesville.
And it had been a slugfest. Neither team had mounted much of an offense; somebody had to do something. So Brown did. With Florida holding a tenuous 9-6 lead in the third, Brown put the South Florida offense on his back.
Starting from the USF 14, Brown completed a 15-yard pass to the 29 and after a two-yard gain, he ran for three more. Then he hit the kill shot, firing a 66-yard pass to Keyshaun Singleton that gave USF a 13-9 lead.
But it wasn’t over yet. Florida would fight back and was up 16-15 with 2:04 to play, USF in possession at its own 39. Once again, Brown rose to the occasion. He completed a 29-yard pass to the Florida 32, and then a 12-yarder to the Gator 20.
As the final seconds ticked away, USF gained six to the 14 and Brown took it from there. He ran for six to the eight, four to the four and two to the two, setting up Nico Gramatica’s game-winning field goal as time ran out.
And that’s the kind of play you need from your quarterback if you are to win in today’s game. The days of a quarterback being simply a game manager, a guy who just does his part, are pretty much over although Brian Hartline, South Florida’s new coach, wouldn’t agree.
With fast paced, up tempo offenses and the spread formation now in vogue, a quarterback has to do much more than manage the game. He has to run it, and he has to be a playmaker, a game breaker.
The introduction of the spread offense and the RPO (run-pass option) has changed the position. Lined up in the shotgun with receivers on both sides and a back next to him, the quarterback can now do different things depending on the defense.
If the defense is playing off the ball, he can hand off to the running back. If the defense is close to the line of scrimmage, he can keep the ball and throw. If the defense begins shifting, he might run himself.
The quarterback is now the determining factor in whether or not the offense is successful. It’s his show. He’s expected to make the plays that win the game, has a lot more responsibility then just managing the offense.
South Florida’s Brown is proof of this. Brown missed most of 2024 with a leg injury and the Bulls were basically a .500 team without him. With Brown back last year, they went 9-4. USF had 117 explosive plays of 15 yards or more and Brown was involved in 88 of them.
And if you look at the best teams in college football, most of them have playmakers, guys who simply take over the game, at quarterback. Vanderbilt was irrelevant in the SEC until Diego Pavia came along. Indiana won the national championship because of Fernando Mendoza.
On the flip side, Florida’s decline in the SEC can largely be attributed to the failure on DJ Lagway. Lagway never lived up to the potential that made him the No. 1 prep quarterback in 2024 according to a number of sites.
“I think that always works, I don’t know how it doesn’t work,” Hartline said of having a game manager at quarterback. And you have to respect his opinion because he has the credentials to back it up.
Hartline believes you win when everybody does his job, that no one player can carry the team. “The one that ends up with the most points wins,” he said. “You want to score, you want to play complimentary football.
“Obviously, the quarterback is touching the ball on every single play,” Hartline continued. “So you want a guy you can trust, a guy that can be a good problem solver, a guy that can be a good fixer and really provide value to everyone around him, just doing their own thing.
“Some people will see that as being a playmaker,” Hartline went on, “but if you look, if you miss an obvious read and you don’t throw the ball but you run for six yards, yeah, that’s good but it can be better.
“It’s not about his (the quarterback’s) production per se, it’s about the execution. So you know, and I think the NFL will show you that all day, you know there are probably guys that everyone wants to call game managers; well, they win championships.
“I don’t know where that comes from (that game managers can’t win big). That’s like the main thing, the No.1 aspect for our quarterback is to manage the game, manage the team, manage the offense.
“We want a guy we trust, we want a guy who provides a lot of value to his teammates, is consistent emotionally and production-wise day in and day out,” Hartline said.
Whether that will get you where you want to go in college football is debatable. It works in the NFL because it’s a different game. Generally, NFL teams try to protect their quarterbacks. They don’t want them running because they might get hurt and they don’t use RPO offenses.
College football seems to have turned the corner on this, though, with up tempo and spread offenses seemingly demanding more from a quarterback than just managing the game. But for his part, Hartline doesn’t agree, and he and USF will try and prove that this fall.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 10, 2026 |
The expectations for Chase Elliott have always been high, much higher then they were for his dad, Bill, who essentially worked his way to the top after starting out with a home-grown team.
Bill Elliott’s father, George, owned Bill’s first Cup car and the team was built around Bill and his brothers, Ernie and Dan. When they pulled into the garage, nobody knew who they were and nobody cared.
It was different for Chase, who came into the game after his father established himself as one of NASCAR’s all-time greats and who, it was thought, could be even better than Bill.
After dominating in late model and at NASCAR’s lower levels, Chase Elliott moved right to the top, securing a ride at Hendrick Motorsports, one of NASCAR’s big three along with Joe Gibbs Racing and Penske.
And he has done well. By almost any measure, he has to be considered one of the top 10 drivers in the sport. And yet, something seems to be missing. Maybe that’s due to his understated personality.
The Elliotts, both Bill and Chase, have always been rather reserved in public. They aren’t the kind of people who attract attention to themselves in a manner like, say, the Waltrip brothers.
They seem a bit uncomfortable in the spotlight, although Chase, probably because of his father’s experience and because he has been forced to deal with his success differently with the advent of social media, is more resigned to being pushed out front.
Still, high expectations can be frustrating. It’s like dealing with a swarm of gnats. They’re annoying and not really much of a threat, but sometimes you just feel like you’ve got to try and swat them away.
And of late, Chase Elliott has come under a great deal of criticism for his failure to produce the way many thought he would. While he is very good at what he does, he has never really reached elite status in the sense of a Denny Hamlin or Kyle Larson or, some would say, even a Ryan Blaney or Christopher Bell.
Elliott appeared to be on his way until 2023, when he suffered a broken fibula in a snowboarding accident and missed six races. He was coming off a big 2022 when, using the Old Guy Sport competition index as a measure, he was second in the standings with 455 points and led going into the last race only to be passed by Joey Logano.
He never really recovered from that. In 2023, he finished 12th with 193 points. He was seventh in 2024, but far behind the leaders with 331, and his total dipped to 278 last year.
That led to people saying he had lost his desire to race and that his crew chief, Alan Gustafson, was no longer on top of his game. Many were calling for a change, although Elliott was quick to defend himself and Gustafson.
And he got a chance to fire back after winning the recent Cup race at Martinsville. Elliott has been a notorious slow starter, and the win came in the seventh race of the season. That’s the earliest Elliott has ever won in his career.
And that was primarily the result of Gustafson deciding to pit him early, about two-thirds on the way through the race. It was a gamble, but it gave Elliott a chance to move to the front and when a caution fell later, Elliott was able to hold on and win.
“Goes to show he’s (Gustafson) pretty good at what he does, which I try to tell Y’all all the time,” Elliott commented after the race according to NASCAR’s website. “He does a pretty good job. I’m happy to work with him,” Elliott continued.
As for the negative commentary on social media, Elliott has learned to live with it. His focus is on doing his job and helping Hendrick Motorsports get better.
“I think for us, the more you do this I think the more you keep an eye internally more than you do externally,” Elliott said. “For us (he and Gustafson), I think we’re just super honest with each other, what we need to do, where our deficiencies are, where the areas are that we’re good at, whatever.
“I think that we’re – as time goes on, we’ve done nothing but get better at kind of being able to sort out our weaknesses in our own meetings, doing what we need to do to get the job done. It’s a very, very straightforward approach,” Elliott commented.
“I enjoy working with him (Gustafson). I genuinely feel that way,” Elliott stated. “I hope he feels the same way about me. I give him all I’ve got every week, even when it’s not pretty.
“I think, because of that, it works,” Elliott said. “It’s simple. We just show up and go to work, man. We try to do the best we can to put the best result out there for everybody involved.”
And because Elliott is not one who wants to be on center stage, he is more open to change than many in the sport.
“I try to have that approach, for sure,” he said. “I think from my perspective, I just want the best result for all of us. However we get there, whatever that looks like, if I’m the problem, I’m the problem. Just help me figure out how to fix it and get better.
“So yeah, I definitely try to be open-minded…I tell Alan this, I’ve told him this throughout the course of the season, ‘Hey, look, whatever you want to do, rip it. I’ll support you whether it goes good or doesn’t go good.’
“I think it’s important for him to have that confidence. When he has confidence in a call, I’m going to have confidence in trying to make it work because I want it to work, too.
“I mean it’s really pretty simple from my perspective,” Elliott went on. “I want to do well, make sure I’m carrying my weight, doing my part for our team. If that means doing something different, I’m good with it.”
And as for the gnats that continually swarm around him and Gustafson, that’s frustrating but not a gamebreaker. Sometimes though, it does feel good to swat them, like he and Gustafson did at Martinsville.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Bristol: 1-Ty Gibbs, 2-Ryan Blaney, 3-Denny Hamlin. Last year’s winner of Bristol spring race: Kyle Larson. Top five in Bristol spring race last year: 1-Larson, 2-Hamlin, 3-Gibbs, 4-Chase Briscoe, 5-Blaney.
Old Guy Sport Martinsville picks: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-Larson, 3-Blaney. Martinsville winner: Chase Elliott. OGS record after five races, 2-3.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Hamlin 151 points, 2-Tyler Reddick 138, 3-Bell 115, 4-Elliott 102, 5-Blaney 84, 6-Gibbs 72, 7-Brad Keselowski 63, 8-William Byron 46, 9-Larson 43, 10-Joey Logano 42.
OGS competition index top 10 on short tracks (tracks most similar to Bristol): 1-Hamlin 72, 2-Bell 61, Elliott 61, 4-Blaney 53, 5-Logano 41, 6-Gibbs 40, 7-Larson 30, 8-Byron 11, 9-Ryan Preece 1.
