Denny Hamlin used to race in both the Cup and the Busch/Xfinity Series during the early years of his career. However, 16 years ago, he won a race in the Busch Series but was not credited for it. Despite having pictures with the trophy, nobody knows who has it now.
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In a recent podcast episode of Actions Detrimental, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver announced a reward for the missing trophy and asked fans to help find it and return it to him.
Denny Hamlin asks fans to return lost trophy
In the video, the JGR driver mentioned, “You could see the video of Aric. He’s pissed off. Crew guys are trying to talk to him. He’s shrugging them off as he’s walking back to the hauler after he got pulled out of the car. He left the race before it ended. So he didn’t get the trophy. I … I don’t know where that trophy is.”
$500 if found https://t.co/a0KoknEvjH
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) October 20, 2023
He added, “I’m thinking that a crew member actually has that trophy. If you were the owner of that trophy uh I’ll pay you $500 finder’s fee to return it… Just for the story…” He said that it would be a great story to tell people about old and rather interesting races when gets older. Adding, “it’d be a fun show and tell.”
Later on, he reiterated the $500 reward while resharing the clip from the podcast on his social media.
How did Hamlin lose the trophy?
The tale began at the 2007 Busch Series AT&T 250 race. Hamlin was scheduled to drive at the race, but his arrival had been delayed after his helicopter could not find a place to land. Thereafter, when he did arrive at the Milwaukee Mile Speedway the race had already begun. Hence, Aric Almirola started the race in his car instead of Hamlin.
As the race progressed the crew chief urged that he would replace Almirola with Hamlin had the former lost out on track position. For the most part of the race, Almirola led up front but ultimately lost the lead around the 44th lap. After this, the crew chief decided to swap out the two drivers with Hamlin taking over the car for the remainder of the race.
The driver change put them a lap down, but with Hamlin at the wheel, he did manage to not only unlap himself but also go on to lead the last 14 laps of the race and eventually grab the checkered flag. So technically it was Hamlin who won the race, hence he got to celebrate on Victory Lane with the etched crystal vase trophy.
But since Almirola had been the one to start the race, NASCAR considered him to be the actual winner of the race. At the end of the day, the fate of the trophy that Hamlin celebrated with remains unknown to both him and Almirola. So if they do find it after all these years it would be a really good story for everyone involved.
