Denny Hamlin’s Las Vegas win last Sunday broke him into rarefied air among NASCAR Cup winners, marking his 61st in the sport’s top tier, moving him past Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time list and putting him within two of Kyle Busch, who sits on 63. With Hamlin still keeping his foot on the gas, the climb is not over yet for the JGR veteran.
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Still, not everyone is ready to pencil him in for the next rung. On Inside the Race, Kyle Petty offered a view that cuts against the grain, suggesting Hamlin may be the last driver to hit the 60-win mark in this era. In Petty’s telling, the days of one driver running away with the win column have gone away, just as carburetors made way for electronic fuel injection.
In earlier times, teams put all their chips on one driver, and that driver cashed in, stacking wins by the handful. Names like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson turned seasons into gold mines, piling up victories at a rate that now feels out of reach. Today, the field is spread across teams with depth, where more drivers have a say, and wins are shared rather than hoarded. That’s why he predicts,
“So I think he’s going to struggle to get to 70. 70 is a huge number because I think 60 is a number that we’re going to look at Kyle Larson,” Petty said. “We’re going to look at Joey Logano. We’re going to look at the guys that are greats that are coming along behind Denny Hamlin. They’re not going to get to 60. I don’t think Denny’s going to get to 70.”
“I think he’s got more wins left in him. But the years of six and seven wins and the year of 10 wins that we used to see, that’s gone. That ain’t coming back. That’s old school racing. We’re going to see guys get three and four wins,” added Petty.
For the JGR ace to bridge the gap from 61 to 70, he would need to keep the engine running for years and keep cashing in at the front, a task that asks a lot in modern-day NASCAR, especially in the Next Gen era. Petty floated the idea of racing into the late 40s, then pulled back, saying he does not see Hamlin holding that line for that long.
Hamlin, for his part, has already done the math. When asked to put a number on it, he said, “I’m going to fall at 67.” That figure lines up with the pace he has set in recent seasons, where he keeps adding wins without lighting the place up every week. There’s only one more burning question that every No. 11 fan has, and whether that comes to fruition or not, Hamlin’s legacy will certainly leave a lasting mark on NASCAR.
