On the surface, Denny Hamlin has one of the toughest jobs in the NASCAR Cup Series. Being the driver of one team and the owner of another sounds like a lot for anyone, but the 43-year-old has managed both roles quite well. During the season, it’s not easy for Hamlin to compromise on his responsibilities at Joe Gibbs Racing so he spends most of the off-season working with 23XI Racing.
Advertisement
The driver, with a net worth close to $65 million also believes that the team should be allowed the space by its owner to grow during a season. This formula has worked as 23XI has consistently improved each season and is slowly becoming a title contender.
“That’s been typically how I’ve been an owner for 23XI. I spend an enormous amount of time there in the off-season trying to help in any way I can, help the processes, things like that. But then once the season gets in, I gotta let them do themselves and certainly they learn and grow by themselves but I try to mentor them anytime that I can, give them some direction but certainly I am way more hands-on in the off-season than during the season,” he said ahead of the Coca-Cola 600.
Denny Hamlin has his say on Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s hefty fine
The sanctioning body’s decision to slap Stenhouse with a $75000 fine while Kyle Busch got away with nothing was met with a lot of criticism. Hamlin did not outright criticize NASCAR but expressed that it was not all positive for them either.
“There has certainly been things that they quietly like to root for but publicly they have to do something different because they don’t want it to get out of hand. I don’t know how much more really gets out of hand.”
“Certainly, I think that with that dollar fine, you’re certainly going to have people think that, “I don’t want that,” so you might not get what you probably are hoping for if you’re NASCAR,” he said.
Hamlin will be looking to win the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, a race in which he has tasted success before.
