It was raining on Denny Hamlin’s parade at Dover last Sunday. Not that he cared. Hamlin is 44 years old, an age when most drivers have called it a career, and he is the best driver in the sport, bar none, and that really isn’t open to debate.
NASCAR’s point standings say otherwise. They have three of Rick Hendrick’s drivers, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Kyle Larson, ahead of Hamlin, but that just shows how absurd the NASCAR system is.
Ever since 2004, when NASCAR decided it had to be more like stick-and-ball sports to compete with them and introduced its own version of a playoff to determine its champion, it has been trying to drive that square peg into a round hole. But it will never work because NASCAR isn’t at all like stick-and-ball sports.
That, though, was the furthest thing from Hamlin’s mind as he found himself sitting out the Dover rain delay, waiting for the sun, or at least for the track to dry, to continue his pursuit of victory.
The rain delay offered an insight into why Hamlin is better at what he does than anybody else, why he is more competitive. Simply put, it’s because he embraces the moment, accepts and looks forward to each and every challenge that comes up during a race.
“I never thought that there was no hope we would go back racing,” Hamlin said according to NASCAR.com. “I do think you have two choices with your mentality; you either get out of the car, hope and pray this never goes back green, you just win the thing because of the weather, or you look at the radar, use your brain and say ‘We’re going back racing, so I better do everything I can to prepare for what happens when I do get back in the car.’
“I just kind of went back to the bus, changed, did a little bit of work and came back out here and I was prepared to get after it when we got back in the car,” Hamlin remarked. “The job’s not done ’til we get to lap 400 (the last lap). Today (Sunday) was an example of that.”
Nobody else in NASCAR thinks like that. The really good ones, like Larson, rely on their physical talent, or, like Elliott, they use their experience. But they drive primarily with their feet and not their head. Virtually every other driver in the sport sees an obstacle, the unexpected, as an impediment, something that will prevent them from achieving their goal.
Not Hamlin. “I just feel like when I’m tested, I’m going to give you a little more. When you doubt me, I’m going to give you a little more. Like, I just feel I thrive in game-time moments, finishing off races like this (Dover),” Hamlin said.
“When I think about it, when I go home, that’s going to be a pound-your-chest moment. They had three shots at me and they couldn’t do it. They had fresher tires and they couldn’t do it.
“It’s just very gratifying,” Hamlin continued. “I hype myself up in that process, while I’m in the game. I’m not out there thinking about how are we going to lose this, worrying about something happening.
“I’m sure there’s going to be another caution. We were going into turn three, about to take the white, there’s another caution,” he said. “I’m not thinking about ‘dang it, shoot, we’re going to end up blowing this race,’ I’m not,” Hamlin declared. “I’m waiting on who’s next, who’s next, who am I going to beat next?”
Hamlin’s approach is shaking up NASCAR’s upper echelon. His success on the track, the respect he commands within Joe Gibbs Racing, has made JGR, and not Hendrick, the new 500-pound gorilla in stock car racing.
This despite the NASCAR point standings which say otherwise. But if you put those aside, and really look at who’s competitive, JGR’s domination is inescapable.
The Old Guy Sport competition index does that. It’s emphasis on leading laps under green, finishing in the top five and winning races paints a very different picture.
If you look at the last five races on oval tracks, for example, Hendrick’s four drivers – Elliott, Larson, Byron and Alex Bowman – have accumulated 204 points using the OGS criteria as a measuring stick.
Contrast that with JGR. By himself, Hamlin has 202 points including two wins and four top fives. No Hendrick driver won any of these races and they only have six top fives between them.
When you add in Chase Briscoe, who also has a win plus two top fives and 150 total points; Ty Gibbs, with two top fives and 41 points and the struggling Christopher Bell, who has just eight, JGR drivers have combined for 401 points over the five race period. That’s nearly double Hendrick’s total.
It all comes back to Hamlin though, and what he’s doing. “NASCAR is an emotional game where you can really get caught up in stuff that doesn’t matter,” Hamlin explained on NASCAR.com.
“So I just try to look at it from a very straightforward point of view, a numbers point of view. Find out where I’m bad, analyze what I’m doing, analyze how the best drivers do it, then figure out how I can go faster like them and give that information to the team,” Hamlin said.
“It typically takes me a little bit longer to give the team that feedback because I like to analyze it, make sure it’s right, before I tell them,” Hamlin commented. “It’s about going through that process and how I do it.”
So, there’s really no question that his unique approach makes Hamlin the best driver out there. The only question is how long it will last.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Indy: 1-Dave Blaney, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Chase Briscoe. Last year’s winner at Indy: Kyle Larson. Top five at Indy last year: 1-Larson, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Blaney, 4-Christopher Bell, 5-Bubba Wallace.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Dover picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Briscoe, 3-Larson. Dover winner: Hamlin. OGS season record: 9-7.
OGS competition index top 10 after 17 races: 1-Hamlin 440 points, 2-Larson 322, 3-Bell 286, 4-Briscoe 257, 5-William Byron 237, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 224, 7-Blaney 214, 8-Chase Elliott 197, 9-Ty Gibbs 122, 10-Alex Bowman 117.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks similar to Indy): 1-Hamlin 209 points, 2-Blaney 196, 3-Larson 186, Byron 186; 5-Briscoe 148, 6-Ross Chastain 102, 7-Joey Logano 79, 8-Bell 71, 9-Chris Buescher 64, 10-Bowman 63.
