Snakebit Denny Hamlin Reeling from Latest NASCAR Title Setback

• This week, NASCAR took 75 driver and owner points from Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing, 10 playoff points from Hamlin, and fined the team $100,000 for violating an engine rule.

• The news immediately erased Hamlin’s chance at the regular season championship.

• It dropped him from third in the standings, 28 points behind leader Tyler Reddick, to sixth, 103 points in arrears with two races remaining in the regular season.

Some might say Denny Hamlin is snakebit when it comes to his efforts to claim a NASCAR Cup championship.

• In 2015 at Talladega, the roof hatch on Hamlin’s car came loose, adversely affecting his bid for a title.

• In 2022 at Martinsville, it was Ross Chastain’s “Hail Melon” video racing move that kept Hamlin from advancing into the championship round.

• In 2023 at Homestead, a power steering belt flipped upside down on his Toyota in the middle of turns one and two, preventing him from being in the championship four.

However, Hamlin said the penalty issued Thursday by NASCAR topped all of the weird things that have happened to him as he’s chased a Cup championship because it “didn’t happen in a certain moment.”

NASCAR took 75 driver and owner points from Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing, 10 playoff points from Hamlin, and fined the team $100,000 for violating an engine rule. The rule requires each race-winning engine to be inspected by NASCAR once the team determines its life cycle is complete. This time, prior to giving the engine to NASCAR for inspection, Toyota Racing Development disassembled and rebuilt the engine Hamlin drove to victory at Bristol in March. TRD reported the violation to NASCAR.

The gut punching news immediately erased Hamlin’s chance at the regular season championship, dropping him from third in the standings, 28 points behind leader Tyler Reddick, to sixth, 103 points in arrears with two races remaining in the regular season. He also lost the cushion he thought might help him advance through the playoff rounds as he dropped to 11 playoff points from 21. The room for error that he possessed had evaporated.

“It’s hard to not feel and be negative in the moment,” Hamlin said at Daytona International Speedway. “Not about the decision … just about our season and potentially what it could or couldn’t do.”

Hamlin wishes he had an answer as to why things keep happening that thwart his championship bid.

“The things that are happening are absolutely random,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin described the most recent one as a “colossal mistake.”

“It’s something that everyone wishes that they could take back or do different, but it happens,” Hamlin said. “When you work so hard in the regular season to get all those bonus points, it’s really tough to see them just wiped away.

“It’s not just the 10 points, it’s the seven, eight others that we’re going to miss out on every round. So cumulative, it could be 50 or so points so that’s the gut punch. This format rewards regular season excellence, but it allows you not to have a perfect day and still be able to race for a championship. But now I’m kind of back there in the middle where I’m very vulnerable in some spots.”

In addition to Bristol, Hamlin used the engine last year and at Darlington this year. He said the engine rule was the side effect of “cost cutting that we’ve been doing in our sport.”

“They want to run the engine three times or so,” Hamlin explained. “If you win on your first attempt with the engine, you don’t want to have to rebuild it. You want to run it two extra times, but if you tear it down, it’s got to get rebuilt again and that costs money.”