“We’re probably one of the sports like athlete salaries have gone down in the last couple of decades.” This was Kyle Larson’s reaction to the anti-trust lawsuit filed by 23XI Racing and FRM against NASCAR. Hendrick Motorsports is among the 13 teams to have signed the new charter deal, in a controversial setting. But it seems like the stand taken by the two teams has opened a dialogue where teams and drivers are airing out their concerns.

In Larson’s case, he highlighted the decline in driver’s salaries compared to other major sporting series in the United States. While Denny Hamlin is at odds with his rival on the racetrack, he agrees with his opinion. Moreover, the co-owner of 23XI Racing also predicted the detrimental outcomes if NASCAR doesn’t bring about systemic change to the business aspect of the sport.

Teams can only do so much with financial constraints, says Denny Hamlin

The big point of debate over this charter dispute is how NASCAR operates the sport financially. Although the charters allow the teams to draw from the revenue purse, it hasn’t resulted in sustainable business prospects for the team. Rather, they still heavily rely on the sponsorship money to help them mitigate the cost of running the race teams. This has led to many teams taking the exit route, Stewart Haas Racing being the most recent example of that.

As per reports from the New York Times, the Cup Series team has to shell out $18 million a year to run a single-car team. At 23XI Racing, Hamlin has to take care of two teams and is on the verge of expanding to a three-car team in 2025. Not to forget, the team also built a massive new race shop, AirSpeed, to help fuel their expansion in NASCAR. But they can only do so much as they wouldn’t want to end up like the SHR being forced to the brink of bankruptcy, while NASCAR gets a bigger piece of the pie.

And driver’s salaries being one of the biggest expenditures for a race team, they are expected to be the ones to take a fall when things go south. This is what Denny Hamlin stated while speaking on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “I think that Kyle Larson’s right, William Bryron’s right, Michael McDowell’s right all those guys spoke a little bit about it when I asked this week, and why the drivers should care is because when the teams are healthy, we’re gonna pay more for their services.”

“Team mechanics, their salaries have gone down; crew chiefs have gone down. Everyone in our sport has gone down, except for one party, and that’s the party that’s on the other end of this lawsuit. So everyone should care because the teams have shouldered the burden of our revenue going down and down over time. What happens is your drivers are your biggest ticket item. So you pay the drivers, which you can afford to pay them,” Hamlin added.

On the racing side of things, Hamlin and the #11 team finally caught a lucky break and were able to salvage a decent points day at Talladega.

Hamlin’s strategy finally worked wonders for him

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Remember Hamlin receiving a lot of backlash for his tactics of running mid-pack at Atlanta for the playoffs race? The likes of Kyle Petty and Kevin Harvick questioned the driver’s decision to intentionally stay back only to see him end the race with a crash. Fortunately, Denny Hamlin was able to dodge the biggest “Big One” in NASCAR history as 28 cars were involved in late-race mayhem.

The #11 Toyota Camry was already banged up after the chaotic finish to the stage 2 run, which saw Ryan Blaney bow out of the race. In a bid to salvage the day, Hamlin came to the pit road in the final stage but lost out on the draft and was left stranded. He was half a lap behind the lead pack of the Fords and Chevy drivers. But this proved to be a blessing in disguise as he avoided the big crash. The #11 team was able to round off the day with a top-10 finish and is now 30 points above the cutline.

“If you would’ve asked me about a top 10 before (the race), I would’ve taken it just because of how this round is. But either way, we need to go to the Roval and have a solid effort.” Hamlin said this in the post-race interview. Needless to say, Denny Hamlin is doing a solid job of keeping his championship hopes alive with all the drama and chaos surrounding him as the team owner. Another top-10 result at Charlotte Roval would see him advance to the Round of 8.