Denny Hamlin began his career in the top flight of NASCAR in 2006 with Joe Gibbs Racing and has been racing with them ever since. However, if luck would have it, today Hamlin’s career could have gone a completely different route than what it was today if it was for one deal.
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Hamlin recently revealed how he had the chance of becoming the teammate of former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. In fact, there was a high degree of chance for it to have become reality, but circumstances however did not permit the same.
But just imagine how different things would have been today if Hamlin and Junior had been teammates.
Denny Hamlin reveals how his career trajectory could have been different
While speaking with the Athletic, Hamlin was asked if there had been any deal throughout his career that he was close to attaining but eventually did not work out. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver responded, “I really don’t know how close it really was. But I was close enough with Dale Jr. to have those conversations about moving to (Dale Earnhardt Inc.).”
Hamlin claimed he didn’t have any conversations with executives. Instead, he only spoke to Junior. But other than that, there weren’t any other deals with other teams he could’ve been a part of. He continued, “Now, as a driver who has representation. If something comes to me, it’s pretty much, ‘It’s here if you want to do it.'”
“Like, it’s not ‘Hey, letting you know this is what’s going on, it’s getting close.’ I pretty much know it’s either a done deal or not, and then I have the choice to do it. So my thought in my brain at the time was, ‘Man, I could go over to DEI and be teammates with Dale Jr.?’ I really contemplated that for a little while.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the option to race for Joe Gibbs Racing
The chances to have a Hamlin and Junior combo as teammates were just not limited to DEI. In fact, there had been another chance, this time for Dale Earnhardt Jr. After the horrible split from DEI, Earnhardt Jr. ended up signing for Hendrick Motorsports. But before his signing, he apparently had been approached by Joe Gibbs Racing, who, by the way, used to run Chevys back in the day.
Speaking about it, Junior mentioned, “When I was looking at what I was going to do after (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) I literally was only looking at Gibbs and Hendrick (Motorsports). I’d went and met with Gibbs. We had a great meeting, and they offered me a contract to sign. And then I went to meet with Rick and he offered me a contract to sign…”
Although he mentioned that he did not regret signing with HMS. He did ponder upon the question of how different would things have been had he joined Joe Gibbs Racing at that moment. So in a nutshell, there had been two separate chances where the Hamlin-Earnhardt Jr teammate universe could have become a reality.
But both of them did not come through at the end of the day.
