Joe Gibbs Racing superstar Denny Hamlin collected his 53rd win in the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday. His victory in Richmond was his second of the season and has fixed his place in this year’s playoffs. Away from all the stats, what this means is that the aging star is still good enough to contend for the championship title. As he reels in gargantuan positive momentum, he has made his inner heart’s desire clear.
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Talking to the press in Richmond he was asked what it was that he wanted to be remembered by 20 years from now. The question, without a doubt, was inspired by his strong candidacy for competing in this year’s title race. Hamlin responded that all he wanted was to be respected and be the one to set records that would take ages to be broken.
As reported by Speedway Digest, his words went, “Just respected. Just someone who could win at all types of racetracks. I haven’t really thought about it from, ‘What happens long after you’re gone?’ But you hope to set marks and records that stand for a long time.” He used a yesteryear memory of how his contenders used to know that he was the one to beat whenever he raced on local short tracks as a youngster, to make his case.
Hamlin’s most desired “60 race wins” goal is in the sights after Richmond
Hamlin is the 13th most successful driver NASCAR has seen with 53 wins. With one more victory, he will match Lee Petty’s record of 54 wins and will be on the hunt to reach Rusty Wallace’s 55-win mark. With every passing weekend, he hopes to climb this ladder and find himself closer to the 60-win mark. The reason behind that is his belief that winning 60 races would put him on an exclusive list of NASCAR’s best.
He told Forbes back in 2020, “I’m going to continue racking off wins. A career goal of mine is to get to 60 wins. That number shifted over the last few years. It was 40 and now, it’s 60. I think we can get that done. Hopefully, we can continue that success.” When Hamlin expressed this desire, he had 17 wins to go to reach the mark. The distance is much shorter at 7 wins now.
While there are plenty more weekends and races this season, reaching 60 wins in the ongoing season will be quite the task. But if there’s anyone capable of achieving the unlikely, it is Hamlin and his #11 Joe Gibbs Racing crew. Reaching the mark would be one of the shiniest medals on his wall. However, his reputation as a “villain” in NASCAR precedes him and that’s something the icon is yet to consider beginning to work on.
