Look out, Denny Hamlin, you have company.
The NASCAR Cup Series’ leading active winner at Bristol Motor Speedway with four victories, Hamlin has been the points leader since Sonoma in late June and still has the 15 other competitors in this year’s chase behind him as they try to pass the 45-year-old Saturday night in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol, Tenn.
That group of 15 championship chasers has done everything but pass the Joe Gibbs Racing driver since the playoffs opened with the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway two weeks ago.
In the regular-season finale at Daytona, where Hamlin had nothing to gain before NASCAR reset the points for the Chase, Hamlin finished 11th and carried no momentum into the postseason.
Back in mid-June, the 64-time race winner said it was important to at least reach No. 65 by the conclusion of the regular season because he did not want to be burdened with a 10-race winless skid rolling into the playoffs.
Yet here he is. And that streak is actually a dozen now, with his points lead now trimmed to single digits.
Following 18th- and ninth-place showings in the Chase, Hamlin said he felt fortunate as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to the half-mile track in the border town of Bristol for a grinding 500 laps at a true bullring.
“For sure, a blessing,” Hamlin said after last week’s race at Gateway when asked if he was relieved to be sitting atop the standings. “(At Darlington), we had (a) good performance … but just circumstances. This week, we weren’t very good, tough day on pit road at the end. Being able to come out of it with something (was good), and the competition also helped.
“Got to be happy with it. I’m gonna be upset about it, but this is another blessing.”
Apparently, “it” means a nine-point lead over Kyle Larson, who broke a 51-race winless streak last week outside St. Louis. Christopher Bell is 18 points back in third place.
There could be more problems ahead for Hamlin, too.
Bell, who owns seven second-place finishes this season, showed he still knew how to seal the deal when he won his first race of the season in the Chase opener in South Carolina.
And who happens to be the defending Bristol Night Race champion?
That would be Bell, who fended off Brad Keselowski in a banner night for JGR. Teammate Ty Gibbs, the winner of the Spring Bristol race, led a race-high 201 laps one year ago under the lights in Thunder Valley, while stablemate Chase Briscoe topped 127 circuits.
As for Larson, if he is truly back to his winning ways, we may be changing “two-time Cup champ” to Mr. Three-Time. Plus, he has won two of the past four Bristol races and three overall.
His stretch of 51 consecutive races without a win almost seemed unfathomable for a title-winning driver strapping into a top-shelf Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, but NASCAR, like all sports, is full of players and teams fraught with funks.
When Larson heats up and is reaching skyward to the flag stand for checkered flags, he has often dramatically gapped the competition and made events at exciting racetracks pretty dull.
Larson’s No. 5 and Bell’s No. 20 are objects in the rearview mirror of Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota.
And it’s crystal clear they’re much larger than they appear.
