Here's the thing about Denny Hamlin right now: a rough start to the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1 has erased his initial 25-point postseason cushion and left him sitting second in the standings. He now finds himself trailing Chase leader Kyle Larson by 40 points heading into Sunday's Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
To find out how to turn this around, the machine's driver only has to look at his own form from the regular season. Earlier in the year, Hamlin fell 129 points behind fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick (who drives for the 23XI Racing team he co-owns with none other than Michael Jordan). Hamlin responded by ripping off three straight victories in June, blowing past Reddick and grabbing the top seeding for The Chase.
Anything is possible, and if we go win, we’ll take care of the rest,
Now, his pursuit of an elusive first series title requires a similar kind of magic, though it is certainly not out of reach yet. As Hamlin himself put it: “We know it can be done. It’s a 10-race season. We got a little head start to that, but it’s a 10-race season. What happened in the first (26 races) doesn’t matter when we come down to these playoffs.”
History actually offers some wild precedent for this exact kind of late-season rescue mission. In 2007, Jimmie Johnson pulled off an insane run by winning four of the last five Chase races to snatch the championship away from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon. Just four years later, Tony Stewart took three of the final four events to hunt down Carl Edwards and seal a series championship through a tiebreaker.
“Anything is possible, and if we go win, we’ll take care of the rest,” Hamlin added.
Sunday's action at Charlotte Motor Speedway gets underway at 3 p.m. ET, with live coverage broadcast across USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
