LAS VEGAS — Boisterous. Determined. Unflappable.
Everything that makes Denny Hamlin Denny Hamlin drove him from mid-pack on the final restart of Sunday’s South Point 400 to a historic triumph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his milestone 60th NASCAR Cup Series win.
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The layers associated with this victory are unlike any other he’s earned previously. This one propels him into a tie with Kevin Harvick for the 10th-most wins in Cup history, a mark Hamlin has been not just conscious of but vocally targeting for years. He entered the season with 54 victories to his credit. And with this series-best sixth win of 2025, Hamlin is the first driver to secure his place in the Championship 4. He will lead the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team to Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 2 for Hamlin’s first chance in the title race since 2021.
Factor in health issues for his 75-year-old father, Dennis, and the emotion poured out, leading to tears both in the car and during Hamlin’s post-race interview.
“I don’t know if I could have scripted it better,” Hamlin told reporters in the media center. “I talked about it before the weekend started, just how important this race was, right? I thought this was the most important. All of it. My friends all weekend (said), ‘We’re getting 60 this weekend.’ … All the factors, I can’t imagine there’s a win bigger for me than this one. With the family, with the significance of it, now being back on top for most wins in the season, punching the ticket to the (Championship) 4, all of it. The fashion in which the last 10 laps played out. All of the above is why I think this means the most.”
Hamlin has won big races before — three Daytona 500s, three Southern 500s at Darlington and one Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, to name a few. But this win serves as tangible proof that Hamlin continues to make history at age 44, now statistically one of the sport’s most elite drivers ever and finding sustained success at a stage of his career that seems improbable. That’s why win No. 60 always meant so much — and why the moment lived up to his dreams.
“I mean, what you saw, that was going on for the last three laps,” Hamlin said of the tears shed. “I did say a prayer into (Turn) 3 with two to go for no caution. I try not to ask for prayers for things that really don’t matter, like competition. I needed to see this one through all the way. So I asked for a favor on this one.”
That kind of emotion from Hamlin, though? The same guy who taunts the crowd by reminding them he beat their favorite driver and thrives when rained upon by boos?
“I’m probably softer than what I put off,” Hamlin said. “I maybe shed a tear during a love story on a movie or something if it’s a really emotional moment. I’ll never let my kids see it. But I do have feelings. I know it’s hard to believe.”
Hamlin has been competing in the Cup Series since late 2005, his first full campaign coming in 2006. His rookie year coincided with the season Jimmie Johnson earned his first Cup Series championship, one of a record-tying seven. Johnson, now the co-owner of Legacy Motor Club, was in Victory Lane on Sunday, looking on as Hamlin celebrated the most significant triumph of Hamlin’s career to date.
“I think he’s at 21 years of doing this. To still be winning races, competing for championships, I mean, that says a lot about him, a lot about the team,” Johnson told NASCAR.com. “I know those monumental, kind of odometer moments, milestones, when you click over, it always made them so real and deep. So with his quest to chase the championship, the 60th win, berth to the playoffs, he’s got to be glowing inside. And I think he’ll look back on the 60th in a deep way. We’ll find out more when we leave Phoenix, but this could be the start of something really big for him.”
In one way, Vegas does mark the beginning of something new for Hamlin — a renewed and re-energized fight for the championship that has eluded him forever. But Vegas is also the continuation of a long, arduous journey that Hamlin has fought to achieve for his entire life.
He knew exactly what he wanted from a young age. At age 8, Hamlin wrote a letter stating he wished to win the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18, 1998. He had to wait until 2016 instead, but indeed he won the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18. He did it again on Feb. 18, 2020. But it took years of sacrifice from Hamlin’s parents, Dennis and Mary Lou, to make their son’s racing career happen. And with Dennis “not doing well,” Hamlin said, Denny’s father’s contributions have been top of mind.
For Dad. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/dAoAI8iILc
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 13, 2025
The two hadn’t spoken after the race before Hamlin made his way to the media center post-race, with Hamlin more eager for an in-person conversation than one over the phone. He did, however, offer insight into what he’d like to tell his father when they do speak.
“Just thank him for sacrificing really his and my mom’s life to chase around my dreams,” Hamlin said. “My parents had no money. My parents had very normal jobs, but they found a way. That way is a path I would never recommend anybody taking. Every credit card that comes to the mail, ‘OK, we’ll use it.’ Asking people to help. Second- and third-mortgaging the house. All these things. The arguments I had to listen to. I’m in my room, and my mom and dad are going at it. One is saying, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ The other one saying, ‘Please, just one more week.’
“It’s great it’s all paid off. Certainly, they got the life now that they deserved before I decided to do this.”
Twenty-one seasons of NASCAR Cup Series racing for one team — Joe Gibbs Racing — have brought years of growth to Hamlin. Team owner Joe Gibbs points to the maturing Hamlin has done not just as a race-car driver but as a human being.
“Honestly, I would say that probably one of the biggest changes in a personality is when Denny first came to us,” Gibbs said Sunday. “He was so quiet. You had to try to get him to talk. Today, look at where he is. It’s been so interesting to watch that over the years. I think part of it is maturing. I do think one of the changes, too, is family and everything he’s got going there with (fiancee) Jordan. I think it’s just one of those things where somebody matures, becomes a father, and takes on a huge responsibility, has his own race team, all of that probably causes somebody to actually change their personality. Certainly, I think Denny has gone through one of the biggest changes of almost anyone I know.”
Chris Gabehart, now JGR’s competition director after six seasons atop the pit box for Hamlin and the No. 11 crew, beamed with pride as he stood on the edge of Victory Lane at Las Vegas Sunday. Together, Gabehart and Co. positioned Hamlin to earn 23 of his 60 career races. Chris Gayle, who moved atop the No. 11’s pit box this year, now has six of those 60.
“I can’t help it,” Gabehart said. “I poured six really hard years into that team and Denny Hamlin, and being a part of creating a pedigree that is that. What a huge win.”
In many ways, Gabehart was the conduit to Hamlin’s resurgent success — both while he was on the pit box and after he moved into his new role for 2025.
“I give full credit to Chris Gabehart for putting the team together,” Hamlin said. “He’s really the one that kind of rejuvenated my career five or six years ago (and) took me from a guy that didn’t win a race in 2018 to winning a lot in the next few years, obviously instilling in me a work ethic and a process that allows me to prepare for each weekend. I mean, I finished the (pre-race) drivers’ meeting and hauled ass back to the bus because I was like, there’s one more thing I need to look at that I think I might just have overlooked. Maybe it was the difference. Maybe, maybe not. But I never want to leave any stone unturned. I’ll never compromise knowing when I get in, I’ve done everything I have to do to go win.”
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Much of that was evident in his drive to the front of the field late in Sunday’s thriller at Las Vegas. A crash by William Byron and Ty Dillon with just more than 30 laps remaining created different pit-strategy plays. Hamlin stopped for four tires and fuel, but others, such as Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano, took just two right-side tires instead. After another crash on the ensuing restart, Hamlin was left in sixth place for the final dash to the checkered flag. He quickly roared to third place, and in a fierce battle with Kyle Larson, Hamlin got the edge and cleared him for second to set his sights on Briscoe for the race lead. He got it with just a handful of laps remaining to claw past his teammate and lock into the Championship 4.
Hamlin admitted he was worried when JGR made its decision to move Gabehart off his pit box and into a management position. But the belief and trust he placed in the hands of Gibbs, Gabehart and Gayle has produced Hamlin’s winningest season since 2020.
“I really appreciate his leadership,” Hamlin said of Gayle. “He pushes me as hard as Gabehart did. I made it very, very clear to him that, regardless of my accolades or his, he is the leader, and I will respect whatever he tells me to do. I think that’s very, very important as a driver, is to give the reins to your leader, which is your crew chief, comp director, whoever it might be. No one driver is bigger than the team they drive for or the person that leads their team.
“I wanted to make it very clear to him that he has my respect, he has my confidence, and do what you see is fit. Do not be afraid to tell me when you think I need to be fixing something or doing something.”
Gayle has witnessed the fruits of that hard labor firsthand, and now he has a half-dozen wins and a Championship 4 berth to prove it.
“Probably things changing for him allowed a little different perspective for him where he felt like he had to be more a part of it and help,” Gayle said. “That’s my gut. He hasn’t said that to me. I’m just watching, right? Watching what he does, how he tries to be a part of it. But I’m also doing that without living through the previous experience. So I don’t know for sure. But I know that whatever I’ve asked him to do, he’s done it. Never questions it. If we want to cut something short, come back a different day and do it for a reason, he’s like, ‘Yep, I’m all in.\"”
Gayle may be new to Hamlin, but those at JGR and Toyota have witnessed Hamlin’s rise from a budding Cup racer with potential to become one of the best NASCAR has ever seen.
“I think what people don’t appreciate (is) Denny works really hard,” JGR president Dave Alpern told NASCAR.com. “He’s not only a student of the sport, as evidenced by his podcast, and when you’re in a driver meeting and you hear him. He just really, really works hard. He’s in the simulator. He just works at it. He deserves it. He earned it.”
Hamlin has been to the Championship 4 four times previously, coming up short each time so far. His most painful title loss, though, was in 2010, before the elimination-style format was introduced and when he finished runner-up to Johnson, who won his fifth straight championship.
Tyler Gibbs, president of Toyota Racing Development USA, has worked for the manufacturer since 1996, long before Hamlin started driving Camrys in the 2008 season and even before the automaker’s entry into the NASCAR world. Now, Hamlin stands alone as Toyota’s winningest driver with 57 Cup Series victories to his credit. Gibbs believes the No. 11 is finally due.
“He’s had other opportunities to win the championship,” Gibbs told NASCAR.com. “It feels like he’s more ready than he’s ever been to win the championship.”
