CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Denny Hamlin is chasing his first NASCAR Cup Series championship despite 50 victories in the series.
Hamlin is among the favorites to win this year’s title as the playoffs begin Sunday at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Hamlin believes drivers and teams prepare differently for playoff races than they do during the regular season.
“I think it’s different for everyone. I think that, am I a person concerned with making the playoffs every year? No. I haven’t been a bubble guy, right? I’ve been very blessed to not be,” Hamlin said during media day on Wednesday. “What I feel about the regular season, if I have a bad day is probably different than someone in lesser equipment. They’re going to fight for that bubble position just about every year. They value probably the regular season a lot more in the sense of when they have a bad day and ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve lost points. I’m not going to make the playoffs.’
“We’re just looking at it as there’s seven available points each and every week to gain and add to my playoff bonus. Did we leave with some or not? That’s kind of the way that I look at it week in and week out,” Hamlin noted. “And then is do I close in on the regular season? Where am I at and can I gain points that way? Did I have a solid day? I guess I’ll always give 100 percent, but in the playoffs, there’s just a little bit of extra that you’ve got to give that you focus on and historically the finishes – we get better in the playoffs. We’ve peaked at the right time and we’re really running well everywhere. Our finishes have been really good. We’re executing good.
“To answer your question, I do think of the playoffs differently, but some people may not because they’re in a pressure situation every week,” he added. “Hey, the only way that I’ve got to get into the playoffs is I’ve got to win, and this is another week that you check off that you didn’t win. It’s just different.”
• When Brad Keselowski signed on as a co-owner/driver at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing last year, he joined a company that had been floundering.
From 2015 through 2021, the company founded by NASCAR Hall of Famer Jack Roush had won two races.
RFK picked up one victory last season in the person of Chris Buescher, who has added three wins to his column this season. Both RFK cars — those of Buescher and Keselowski — have qualified for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs this year.
But Keselowski isn’t satisfied. Asked whether he thought the organization was ahead of the schedule he envisioned when he joined the company.
“Oh, no. Gosh, I wanted to be here last year,” Keselowski said. “But that’s not where we were. That’s not what we were prepared for. The good news is we’re here now, and we still have a lot of potential.”
• Martin Truex Jr. said that missing the playoffs last season certainly resonated with he and his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team.
“The day after Phoenix last year it was like alright, we are getting to work,” Truex explained. “It really lit a fire under everybody to just show how bad they wanted it and go to work on it. I think our whole group across the board really, right after Phoenix, got to work on things and it definitely was a big inspiration for us this year.”
• Joe Gibbs Racing has swapped pit crews for the No. 20 Toyota driven by Christopher Bell and the No. 54 of Ty Gibbs beginning this weekend at Darlington Raceway.
• Ross Chastain is one driver excited about this weekend’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
“Whether I was driving in the Southern 500 this weekend or not, I would be going down there to watch,” the Trackhouse Racing driver said. “I love that track. I love the drive down. I definitely love driving on it. I just get excited about it. I get excited watching clips of racecars going around that track.”
• Kyle Busch said his first season with Richard Childress Racing has exceeded expectations, and he still has 10 races to improve upon it.
“I would say – give me some of my finishes back and I would say that we’ve probably exceeded expectations,” Busch said Wednesday. “Three wins on the year, I feel like is a good start. I’d love to have five total, in a perfect world, so let’s win two of these final 10 races and we’ll really have something to talk about.”
• Three of the four Joe Gibbs Racing teams made the playoffs. Martin Truex Jr. spoke to the team’s improvement this season.
“If you look across JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Toyota as a whole, I feel like we are stronger this year,” Truex said. “Everybody did a really good job in the off season of making the right changes and working on the right things, and I think for us – just understanding the car. We took a lot of gambles last year and tested a lot of things, and we found a lot of things that didn’t work and that is part of the process of figuring these things out.
“I think we were really aggressive last year and that was maybe not great at times but this year, I think is just helped speed up that learning process. Better cars, better understanding of those cars and just being able to put it all together is the difference.”
• Christopher Bell finished fourth in the regular season standings, but acknowledged the first 26 races didn’t go as well as they could have for his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team.
“What is crazy is we finished fourth in the regular season standings, which is amazing,” Bell said. “If you would have told me from February 1st, that you are going to finish fourth in the regular season standings, I would be like yeah, ‘I’ll take that,’ but after living it, there were so many more opportunities on the table that got left there.
“That was very disappointing and encouraging at the same time, because I know that we have all of the pieces to not be underrated. Just have to put them all together, and if we do put them all together, I think greatness is ahead of us.”
According to BetMGM, Martin Truex Jr. has the best odds of winning the Cup Series title at 17-4. William Byron is listed at 5-1, while Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin are each 6-1. If you like the longshot, Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are each listed at 150-1.