Denny Hamlin secured the 59th win of his Cup Series career at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday. With this, he is now closer to achieving the 60-win mark that he set for himself previously.
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But Cup Series championships are harder to win now than ever. They require not only skill and talent, but a massive amount of luck. This is why Hamlin has reiterated time and time that he wouldn’t mind retiring as a driver with no championship to his name.
The 60-win mark is something that he sees as a worthy alternative. Reaching it would put him in the top-10 all-time winners list, and that’s a nice and comfortable couch to retire in. For this, the former crew chief, Steve Letarte, thinks Hamlin is a genius.
He said recently on NASCAR: Inside the Race, “While he knows that’s the ultimate goal [Cup Series title] and he would love to have one, I feel that he is so confident in his career that he wanted to set a goal that he felt like was more, obtainable is the wrong word, but maybe more in his control?
“You have a lot of chances to win races, but only so many to win a championship. So he threw 60 out there, and I think that was a genius move internally because I wonder if that’s not the guiding light of Hamlin’s top form at 44 years old. Like, how does a guy do that?”
The final slump in an old driver’s career comes without warning. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran had a few quiet years in the recent past. But he is back now, hotter than ever. Letarte made a note of the same and expressed faith that 60 wins are definitely on the cards for the driver.
Hamlin’s clarity about what he wants is astounding. He said in an interview earlier this year that he wouldn’t trade even his three Daytona 500 wins for a Cup Series title. He has also underlined that he would take 60 wins and no titles over 20 wins and one title.
Could Hamlin be the last driver to secure 60 wins?
The NASCAR landscape is far from what it once was. Kyle Petty, who was also on the NASCAR: Inside the Race panel with Letarte, believes that because of this, Hamlin might be the last driver to win 60 races in the Cup Series.
Neither Kyle Larson nor Joey Logano has convinced him enough to trust that they will be up for the challenge. He pointed out that there are only three drivers in the top 20 of the all-time winners list who haven’t won a championship. They’re Hamlin, Junior Johnson, and Mark Martin.
Petty added, “But you know what? Doesn’t make any difference. They’re still top-10! They’re still top-15 all-time winners… Somebody may prove me wrong, but I think he [Hamlin] is going to be the last guy to climb that mountain.”
All that said, Hamlin is still in the race to win the 2025 Cup Series championship. His Round of 12 spot is confirmed with the Gateway win. The biggest hope is that he will manage to hit bullseye this time around.
