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Motorsport

Denny Hamlin, 'the old dog,' is still hunting with Vegas win

Denny Hamlin Chris Gayle Joe Gibbs Racing Kyle Larson Sean Gardner

Crossing the finish line on Sunday, Denny Hamlin said ‘old dogs can still hunt,’ and that might have enough legs to become the slogan for his 2026 season.

There were a lot of reasons to expect that maybe this old dog might start to get a little bit sluggish. For one, he went through absolute hell over the winter, with the death of his father in a house fire, that also hospitalized mother Mary Lou.

This delayed his ordinary ramp-up period and it was an open question whether or not Hamlin had enough gas left in the figurative tank to even find the gears needed early in the season after taking so much time to grieve and emotionally recover.

And then, perhaps most importantly from a performance standpoint, Hamlin is 45-years-old and this is when many careers have stated to wind down whether a driver embraced it or not. Old Dog is more than a metaphor.

“I mean, this is gratifying because I saw, like, the legendary Mount Rushmore guys, and raced against them,” Hamlin said. “I think probably at least two on the Mount Rushmore I got to race against and know how good they are.”

Hamlin is no doubt referencing Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

“I also saw at the end of their career when they got to my age that the performance changed, for whatever reason,” he added. “I think Kevin Harvick is kind of the one that sticks out that he was still doing it at this level at this age. I don't know when he stopped winning. Maybe 46-ish, 47-ish. I'm not really sure.

“That was, like, motivation to me that, ‘Okay, it's possible.’ Not everyone ages the same. Eyesight is the same, reaction is the same at the same age. But that gave me hope that, like, I think that I can still do it.”

And on Sunday at Las Vegas, where he won his 60th career victory in October, Hamlin verified that he is still the same driver that came within one late caution of winning that elusive Cup Series championship in November at Phoenix.

He is still working as hard as he ever has over the past decade and was rewarded for it just as he has for much of the past decade as well.

“I mean, I can tell you, there are Mondays and Tuesdays where I'm over it,” Hamlin conceded. “I just don't... I don't know whether I just want to keep doing this grind over and over.

“It happens after you have the failures at like Phoenix where it's like I spent all that time working, all that time studying, I aced the test and failed. That's where it was, like, discouraging. Do I really want to do this again?

“So days like today... Last night I was grinding still. I was working hours and hours and hours after this practice was over to try to figure out how we could make our car better, communicating with the team on that. It feels good when you get the cookie at the end.”

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, Christopher Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing (Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

It was also in the back of his mind if the dog was maybe too old after an off-season that no doubt aged him a little quicker than normal.

“I don't know what goes on in those two months,” Hamlin said of his own body. “I'm no fool. I know my reaction's deteriorating. There's all kind of things that are deteriorating. Father Time is undefeated. Three months is a long time where it's like, ‘Okay, am I still at the level that I was last year, especially to end last year?’

“Today confirmed that nothing has changed, which is really good. It's a good sign. We're still able to do it at a really, really high level. So it's just gratifying to me that I'm still at this age getting it done.”

And he had to work for it too, needing to overcome a speeding penalty at the end of the first stage, but racing his way all the way back to fifth by the end of the second stage. It’s a competition between that drive through the field and his family greeting him on the frontstretch over what he will remember most.

His wife, his kids and his mom, all celebrating No. 60 with him.

The victory was also a testament to the resolve of crew chief Chris Gayle, who says he agonized three days over the decision to go with four tires, when two won Kyle Larson the championship. Not that Gayle was going to retire over this, but the veteran shot caller let the frustration do its thing for three days, and then he got back to work.

“Then you go through those three days of where you’re like kicking yourself, what are you going to do about it -- you get over it,” Gayle said. “How am I going to react to this? I could let it bother me forever. That’s not going to happen. I can move on, learn from it.

“I don’t know necessarily why it worked out the way it did. There were some decisions I made in that, some I would do different, some I wouldn’t. You have to move on. I sat around. I’m old enough now, I have a daughter. How do you want other people to think and see you that are close to you? That’s how I decided.”

And Hamlin never questioned it in hindsight because he never questioned it in the moment, either.

“I was certainly surprised to see fricking nine guys stay out or take two and put themselves right in the middle of the championship battle,” Hamlin said. “I couldn't believe all those cars stayed out but they did.

“It's only the wrong call because if one or two extra cars stay out ... If one or two don't, I'm right where I need to be. If Larson is not right behind a teammate, does he get through as easy? We'll never know. Those are the ifs and buts. You just can't live in that world. That's why I didn't want to talk about it because you can't change it.”

So instead, come February, Hamlin got back to work to influence the things he can change, while Gayle started doing the same before Thanksgiving.

Be it what happened to them professionally in November or what happened to Hamlin personally, it was time to start moving forward, which made seeing Mary Lou Hamlin on the frontstretch all the more rewarding for her son.

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing and his mother Mary Lou Hamlin (Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

The old dog went back to work and caught one on Sunday, even when the odds were stacked against him, self-inflicted, in the middle stage of the race.

“I shift the goalpost when I go to the back at the end of stage one,” Hamlin said. “That sucks, I just screwed this up but let's figure out a way to get to the top five. Might take strategy or something. I realized pretty early after that restart that as fast as we were, we still had a chance.

“But yeah, this is hugely gratifying. It's something, I don't know, it just makes me feel good about what I do.”