Inside Denny Hamlin’s Life As a NASCAR Driver, Team Owner and Media Member

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran says, “I never really considered any of this work because it’s all what I love to do.”

The Daytona 500 is one of the most difficult NASCAR Cup Series races. 

Though it is the 2023 season opener and all eyes will be watching to see the drivers and teams bounce back, it’s almost like a grueling lottery where a driver’s success is partially dependent on others as well as their own skill. It’s easy to get swept into a wreck, and there’s a reason why the winner is dubbed the champion. 

Richard Petty, also known as The King, won this race seven times, and Cale Yarborough ranks second on the all-time wins list with four victories of his own. Then there’s four drivers clustered together with as three-time winners: Bobby Allison, Dale Jarrett, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin, who is in his 18th season. 

Hamlin has totaled 48 wins in 17 campaigns, and is one of the longest-tenured competitors for Joe Gibbs Racing. As he rose to his place as a veteran in the garage, he flexed his versatility at a variety of tracks. However, he has been known for his fair share of controversy. 

I’m the problem? pic.twitter.com/ufeGkHCcIe

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) January 5, 2023

But Hamlin more than just a driver. 

The 42-year-old is a proud girl dad to Molly (5) and Taylor (10) and is entering his third year as co-owner of 23XI Racing alongside NBA legend Michael Jordan. The outfit fielded its third car this weekend with extreme sports star Travis Pastrana, who locked in his spot for The Great American Race on Sunday afternoon. 

Coleman: Denny Hamlin Embraces Being a Driver, a Team Owner and a Girl Dad

As NASCAR prepares for the first points race of its 75th season, Hamlin spoke with Sports Illustrated about what it takes to win this race, his new podcast, what the future of the sport looks like and much more.  

He’s gonna live his dream this Sunday. Congrats @TravisPastrana #teamtoyota pic.twitter.com/yo8nTwXo3h

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) February 16, 2023

The following questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Sports Illustrated: What is the biggest lesson that you’re taking from 2022 and bringing into 2023?

Denny Hamlin: There’s a lot of lessons from last year to this year, to be honest with you. We created a notebook for all the racetracks, which is so valuable. There’s been many times where we just kind of were off and didn’t have a whole lot of answers. But now that we had time to download on all these racetracks after we ran up this Next Gen car after a year, feel really good about how we typically correct the second time around.

SI: How are you feeling about the Next Gen car? Driver safety concerns were a major topic last season and going into the offseason. 

DH: We definitely have some concerns on safety, but that seems like it’s making some good strides forward. NASCAR continues to evolve the competition side by making adjustments to the rules for aerodynamic packages and things like that to make the cars race better. So I feel definitely more confident this year in the Next Gen than what we had last year.

SI: What were some of the concerns that you had last season with the driver safety, and do you feel that those have been addressed? And additionally, have new safety concerns kind of popped up? The Clash had a lot of hard hits. 

DH: Yeah, it certainly was, that’s for sure. And I think that a lot of the hard hits came from that it’s really just a harder race car. It’s heavier, it’s got more steel in it and it just didn’t have enough flex in the car. But NASCAR has cut out some bars, redesigned some things to make it test better. We’re gonna test it firsthand when we get in crashes probably on Sunday. But that was our biggest concern was kind of the lack of testing that it had on the on the actual racetrack before we were we chose to go race it. But you know, that’s all water under the bridge, and we’re moving forward from this point on.

SI: Now that you’ve had time to kind of review how the Clash went, looking at the data, both as a driver but also as a team owner, what are your general thoughts on that event? Is there anything that you’re able to carry over into Daytona even though it’s a completely different beast?

DH: The Clash … it’s unique. I know a lot of people try to draw conclusions from that race to the Daytona 500, but when the field is cut [in] half, there’s not as much energy in the pack itself. I think you’re gonna have a little bit more exciting racing come Sunday. Everyone’s really trying to take care of their cars during the Clash, but really, what we learned is that handling will be a factor in the race cars. You better make sure your car’s handling good and drives good, especially with it being a day race on Sunday. We’re going to work on it during practice [on Friday] and make sure we’re dialed in. Not always do you see competitors show their hand on  Thursday’s races. They typically do that on Sunday.

McDowell (34) spins in front of Bell (20), Hamlin (11) and Gibbs (54) during the NASCAR Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum :: Jason Parkhurst/USA TODAY Sports

SI: Do you have a preference for the day races vs. night races?

DH: I typically like the day races because handling is a factor, certainly is a big factor. You want the race to come down to more of a skillset type of race, and I think that the hotter the racetrack is typically the more the driver skillset comes into play.

SI: I’m guessing that you like the races that are kind of in the south a little bit more.

DH: Yeah, to start the season, it just makes sense, especially here in mid-February, that we need to be racing down in Florida. We’re going to be in Vegas and California over the next few weeks and Phoenix as well. So, once it starts to heat up, we’ll start to head back north.

SI: What makes Daytona so special?

DH: Just the history of Daytona is really what makes it different than any other race. I really try to put it into words, but it’s so hard to [with] what this race means. This is the 65th running of the Daytona 500, it’s NASCAR’s 75th anniversary of a being a sport—It’s iconic. They call you a champion after this race for reason because it takes so much to win it. It’s our biggest race because of the history, and that’s pretty much what makes it what it is. 

SI: Looking at this race but then also this season from the 10,000-foot view, what is it like being part of such a big chapter in NASCAR’s history?

DH: It is, and the France family has done a great job building this sport over time and evolving it. We’re starting to see a big change in the mindset of NASCAR over the last few years with changing the schedule around and going to new venues and going to different tracks and building their own tracks. All that is really, really good for our sport, and hopefully it continues to grow. As a team owner, I certainly want to see it continue to grow, and that would be good for us.

SI: Where do you see NASCAR’s future going?

DH: It’s tough to see where it goes, right? I think a lot of it will be what happens in the next TV negotiations. That’s going to be a big part of what we do. On the ownership side, it’ll be a big part of what investments NASCAR’s willing to make towards the growth in the future. I think certainly, they would like to expand internationally. I think you’ll see that in the years to come. So it’s tough to really say where I see it going, but I think I kind of have an idea of where they want to go with it.

SI: What has it been like navigating the battles off track as a team owner?

DH: I have so many different hats on at times. I mean, I’m a driver. I’m an owner. And now I’m a media member. I have my own podcast. It’s definitely interesting, but I love the sport. I never really considered any of this work because it’s all what I love to do. I always try to help the sport anytime I can. I have a great dialogue with people at NASCAR about what we can do to make things better, and we’re never gonna stop working together to make it as good as we can.

Hamlin congratulates Pastrana after Daytona 500 qualifying :: John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports

SI: What made you want to launch your own podcast? And does wearing all of these different hats help you appreciate more of the ins and outs of the sport with seeing all the different sides?

DH: It came from Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. sitting down with me and talking about ‘I believe you’re misunderstood in the media simply because you don’t have long enough to speak. And if you have a platform … then you’re going to be able to create the narrative that is correct and explain yourself a little bit better.’ I love talking about the sport—I do. I am going to be part of it for a very long time, and so it’s my job to make the sport better when I leave than when I got here, right? I am very heavily vested in this sport, and I want to see it do well and I want to help it grow. By starting this podcast, I want to be a very fair and unbiased media member, and sometimes that’s going to be giving praise to somebody that I don’t like on the racetrack. And sometimes it’s going to have to be calling myself out when I make a mistake. But that’s what fans tune into is that hearing somebody that’s in the event that just came off the racetrack, get behind a microphone and talk about what they saw. That’s what’s going to be the most intriguing thing that hopefully they take from it. 

SI: You had touched on this a little bit earlier, but what does it take to win at Daytona?

DH: It takes a lot of different facets and I’ve talked about this a lot this week, but I think that it takes three things. And the more I think about it, I think they’re all equally weighted at this point. It takes 33% luck, 33% of it is driver skill and the other 33% is execution, which is not making mistakes. Especially with this Next Gen car, it is so difficult to make it back to the front if you get to the back of the pack. I think you cannot make any mistakes on Sunday if you want to win. It’s hard to get all three of those things to line up perfectly on any given day, but much less on the Daytona 500. You can’t have any of them go wrong, and you have to be at the top of your game on your skillset. So that’s why you see some of the best that’s ever done it [like] Dale Earnhardt only win it one time because one of those elements did not work out in his favor on that day. So I think that’s why it’s tough and why you haven’t seen that many repeat winners. 

SI: How do you go into a race weekend with wearing all the different hats?

DH: On the weekends, I really try to focus on myself and my own team. During the week is when I really am a team owner, and I’m in those meetings and working to make that team better. Now, certainly, I’m looking at the scoreboard to see where they’re at. They’re an extra bullet in the gun for me. If I don’t win, I certainly got three more chances to win each and every Sunday. I really like the enjoyment of seeing that team grow and knowing that I’ve got a hand in all of it. It’s very gratifying for me, and we’re just starting.

SI: Kind of a simple but deep question for you—who is Denny Hamlin?

DH: Denny Hamlin is someone that works extremely hard. I love work. I am someone that loves to see results from work. I really consume myself at all times with how can I be better—a better race car driver, a better dad, a better team owner, a better podcaster. I just always try to be better.

SI: You have had a lot of questions thrown at you this week, and I’m sure there’s more to come this weekend. But is there a question or topic that you wish more people would ask you about, and how would you answer?

DH: That’s a really good one. That I want to talk about? I would say that you kind of get all the bases touched, I guess you could say, during media availability. But I would say that for us as a race team, the 23XI race team, to have one car in year one, two cars in the year two, and to start a third year with a third car in Travis Pastrana is a huge feat. I can’t give enough credit to that team and the people that I have working there to accomplish that. It is so hard to build a team from the ground up. It’s very difficult, especially in today’s climate, trying to beat a Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing that’s been around since the beginning of time. But we’re doing it and we are competing, and I’m really proud of that.

SI: What are some challenges that y’all have faced that maybe people don’t really realize with these teams that are coming from the ground up?

DH: The challenges we face is really within the workforce—getting people to join our team and willing to put themselves on the road for 38 weeks of the year. That takes a lot of sacrifices from family members and children. It’s really, really tough to get the workforce that you really want to, and that’s the challenges that we run. We wish we could pay much more money, and race teams only have so much revenue. Right now, we’re doing the best we can, but we feel like we’ve got the best guys in the industry working for our team.

SI: And my last question is what is your boldest prediction for the 2023 season?

DH: My boldest prediction would be that Kevin Harvick makes it to the Round of 4 in his final year.