Many times this season, Denny Hamlin has emphasized that he is feeling money this time around. This means that he is full of conviction that this year could be the year he wins his first NASCAR Cup championship in an otherwise stellar career that has spanned close to two decades now. But even though he is feeling confident and even though he’s had a great year so far statistically, if Hamlin is to do what he hasn’t done before, he may have to beat some big favorites.
But Hamlin realizes that he isn’t the favorite in the list of favorites. He opened up about this in the recent episode of his podcast show, Actions Detrimental.
Denny Hamlin knows he won’t be the favorite for the NASCAR Cup title this year
During this week’s episode of Hamlin’s podcast, his co-host Jared Allen touched on an interesting storyline in NASCAR that was ‘talk of the town’, but quickly subsided after Bristol. “The reporters keep talking about Phoenix. They were just this week talking about Truex not making it past this round, and yet. All these reporters want to just jump to Phoenix and forget to talk about these races that they have,” Allen said.
Hamlin replied, “I don’t know what the odds would be but I’m smart enough to understand right now if let’s just pretend, let’s just take the top 4, the Byron, Hamlin, Truex, Larson, and the oddsmaker at Phoenix would probably make me the third favorite.”
The #11 driver explained that it may be so because Larson has won a championship in Phoenix, and Truex, already a NASCAR champion, has a good record at Phoenix Raceway. Hamlin explained, “It’s easy to get caught up in what’s this week’s results or last week’s, ‘Oh, Truex is not what he was’. Yeah, bulls**t.”
Hamlin would be an underdog heading into Phoenix, but not to himself
Hamlin described that there are some racetracks that may fit a certain driver’s style and skills more than others. And Phoenix isn’t a racetrack that necessarily fits the 42-year-old, which could have an interesting implication.
“I think that we would be an underdog right now going into Phoenix,” Hamlin claimed.
Having said that, Hamlin clarified that the mindset of an underdog isn’t one he’s going to have. “When we’re at our best, good luck,” he added as he emphasized he feels they’re “really good”.
And perhaps because of that, he’s looking forward to the coming “fun seven weeks.”
