Can Denny Hamlin Finally End His Championship Curse?

Will the Seattle Mariners finally reach and win the World Series? Will Indiana University win a national championship—in football!? Will Denny Hamlin finally win the NASCAR Cup Series championship?

These questions will be answered in the coming days, weeks, and months. None carries more force in NASCAR Country than the drama surrounding villain-suddenly-turned-hero Hamlin, who carries a 0-for-forever burden into the final weeks of this season in search of an elusive first Cup championship.

Hamlin took an imposing first step toward finally visiting the throne room Sunday, winning with some dynamic late-race driving—indeed, some of the finest of his career—at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and becoming the first of four drivers to earn a spot in the Championship 4 race November 2 at Phoenix.

Significantly, Hamlin is essentially on vacation for the next two weeks as the Cup Series stops at the large and small of it—first Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway and then at Martinsville Speedway. No matter how he runs at Talladega and Martinsville, Hamlin is locked into the Phoenix chase for the title, giving his Joe Gibbs Racing team two weeks to concentrate on Phoenix.

The Phoenix victory lane is not uncharted territory for Hamlin. He won at Phoenix early in the 2012 season and then in the next-to-last race in 2019. That 2019 win propelled him into the Championship 4, which was held that season at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hamlin lost that shot at the title, finishing 10th and behind eventual champion Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., and Kevin Harvick.

Some drivers absolutely love some tracks and defiantly hate others. For Hamlin, Phoenix is mid-pack. In addition to the two wins, he has 17 top-fives and 23 top-10s in the desert, and there is little reason to believe he won’t be competitive when the bright lights of the championship run are turned on in three weeks.

Yet, on the down side, through a Cup career that began full-time in 2006, Hamlin has repeatedly found a way not to win a championship. Bad luck, bad choices, bad karma—they have ridden with him.

One of the significant hurdles standing in Hamlin’s way across the years was a guy named Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin had the misfortune of arriving in the sport just as Johnson was beginning an unprecedented run of championships. Hamlin finished third in points in 2006, the year Johnson won the first of five-straight titles. Hamlin was fifth to Johnson in 2009 and second to Johnson in a devastating loss in 2010. Just for good measure, Johnson tacked on titles in 2013 and 2016 to total seven for his career, with Hamlin still in the waiting room.

Hamlin’s string of “almost” titles would grow to include finishes of third (three times), fourth (two times), and fifth (three times).

Hamlin scored his 60th career Cup victory in a flood of emotion Sunday, tying him with Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time win list. Overlooking Hamlin’s championship issues, it’s clear he’s one of the best to ever do this. The names above him on the win list are NASCAR gold: Richard Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Jimmie Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Kyle Busch. With two years remaining on his contract, and with Busch struggling, Hamlin seems certain to pass Busch’s 63 wins and move into ninth all-time. He has six wins this year, the first time since 2020 he has reached that number.

While the rest of the playoff contenders search for victories and points this week at Talladega and next at Martinsville, Hamlin has designs on Phoenix and his latest shot at the title, this time with first-year crew chief Chris Gayle, who will lead a team in the championship finale for the first time.

This will be Hamlin’s fifth appearance in the Championship 4 and his first since 2021. At 44 years old, it’s tempting to say it might be his last, but, with a six-win season and the smarts with which he raced over the final laps at Las Vegas Sunday, it’s best not to doubt him.

The future might hold more. Maybe even that championship.