There was a time when Kyle Busch used to be NASCAR’s bad boy. And now, the black hat has perhaps been rightfully inherited by his former teammate Denny Hamlin. There is just something about this Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s villainous demeanor that triggers his haters so much that whenever he wins a race, it’s them making the loudest noises from the grandstands. Hamlin feels that he is kind of like the LeBron James of NASCAR when it comes to garnering boos from the fans.
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“LeBron comes into a home area, people boo the sh-t out of him. He makes them feel a certain way. They may say he sucks, but they know better. I think that that’s the case with me,” he added. Hamlin’s usher into the infamous villain arc arguably started when he nudged his golf buddy Kyle Larson during last year’s Highpoint.com 400 at Pocono Raceway. And after that every time he was introduced, he got nothing but boos. But he could care the least for them. Hamlin realizes that he will probably never win the NMPA Most Popular Driver award. However, he is not bothered by that.
“While I’m not NASCAR’s most popular driver or probably even in the top five, you’re not going to argue that when they call my name this weekend, where does the most noise come from?” Hamlin exclaimed. “It could be good or bad, it doesn’t matter. It’s noise. It makes someone feel a certain way for a certain reason. So I’ve just embraced that.”
After having won The Clash at The Coliseum, Hamlin sets his eyes on his fourth Daytona win this year. And he seems to not be in a mood to be humble about it. He said, “I do believe I have humility in certain situations. I just do not want to let anyone see that humility.”
Denny Hamlin reveals his goals for 23XI Racing
Safe to say, last year went pretty great for 23XI Racing. Hamlin’s pride knew no bounds when both his drivers, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, made it to the playoffs. However, while Reddick managed to advance to the round of 8s, Wallace got chucked out of contention in the round of 12.
Therefore, the goal for this year is to get both the cars in the top 8. In an episode of his podcast, Hamlin said, “Our expectation is to continue to get better. That’s a very vague statement. You know, just two cars in the playoffs, that’s way too modest, for what we have going on there. So my goal would be to have both cars, at least both cars in the Final 8.”
The goal after that would be to get at least one car in the Championship 4 in the first five years since the birth of the team. But Hamlin knows better than just getting ahead of himself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And Hamlin knows that it will take steady steps for him to achieve his goal.
For this year, those steps include adding newer resources, and engineering personnel and capitalizing on the newly constructed facility. According to him, the expectations from his team shouldn’t be any lower than what is expected of Joe Gibbs Racing. Sure, that is some pressure for Wallace and Reddick.
