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Denny Hamlin is no stranger to winning at the highest level in NASCAR. With 54 Cup series wins and three Daytona 500 championships in over 600 Cup series starts, he has been around a while. With that resume, you’d presume he has a Cup Series Championship, but no.
In the automotive world, there is a term for continual electrical issues: an electrical gremlin. While Denny may not always have an electrical issue, he always has some gremlins leading up to and during the playoffs.
Now we are closing the regular season of 2024, and Hamlin is hunting down the Regular Season Championship… or he was.
On August 22nd, Hamlin and the No. 11 team were blindsided by a massive L2 penalty. This penalty was due to TRD not following protocol when tearing down a winning engine. The penalty’s biggest implications were the 75 driver/owner points fine and the 10 playoff point fine.
This penalty follows an already abysmal two-week stretch from Richmond and Michigan. While Hamlin finished a respective second and ninth, it wasn’t without struggles.
NASCAR comes back from the Olympic break with a short track. Richmond offered so much, including a thrilling but controversial finish. All thanks to Austin Dillon bumping the No. 22 in turn 3 and hooking the No. 11 out of turn 4 to get the win. This took away a valuable five playoff points from the No. 11, which was in a tight race for the Regular Season Championship, which offers an additional 15 playoff points to the Champion.
Hopes were high going into the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan, with Hamlin snagging the pole on Saturday. But those high hopes were scraped off the bottom of the car as Hamlin wrecked by himself in the early parts of stage 2, causing damage to the underbody. A track like Michigan is very aero-dependent, so the damage caused issues all Monday when the race resumed due to a weather delay.
The 3x Daytona 500 Champion knows how to get around the track, but avoiding wrecks can be a whole other game. While Hamlin qualified 20th, he worked his way into the top 10 during the early parts of stage 2. But again, Hamlin was not going to get a hand from Lady Luck. A mid-pack wreck out of turn 2 collected Hamlin, ending his day early at Daytona. On the heels of the penalty, what else could go wrong?
Prior to the penalty, Hamlin was in a tight four-way battle for the Regular Season Championship. Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Denny Hamlin were within 20 points of each other. Post-penalty and post-Daytona, Hamlin has dropped to 8th in points back -111. With only Darlington remaining in the regular season, Hamlin needs one focus: to finish the 2024 regular season on a high note.
While he is 8th in points, some ground must be made up to gain a few points. Keselowski is only 5 points above Hamlin going into Darlington. Every position will matter on Sunday during the crown jewel, Southern 500.
On Denny’s podcast, Actions Detrimental, co-host Jarred Allen made a great point early in the year by stating,
Do you think the path to a championship starts with a regular season championship?
This was in regards to Denny wrecking himself at Texas early in the season while trying to push the car beyond the limits. In the world of NASCAR, every position counts, no matter where we are in the season. While a good finish at Texas wouldn’t override the L2 penalty, it could’ve allowed him to be closer to 5th or 6th in the standings.
From here, only time will tell the implications of this abysmal three weeks for Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 JGR Toyota.
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