Denny Hamlin’s Chances of Breaking the 60 Mark Seems Bleak With the NextGen Car

Can Denny Hamlin finally win the Bill France Cup this year? With his Bristol victory still looming large, the #11 has certainly put the pedal down on his unsuccessful yearly journey for the 19th time in the NASCAR Cup Series. But another interesting question is: Could Hamlin effectively tie Kevin “freaking” Harvick at the 10th spot in the all-time wins list with his 60th checkered this year?

To do that, Denny Hamlin needs eight more wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. He effectively pushed past the 50 mark with his win at Bristol’s “Last Great Colosseum.” But to draw closer to Kyle Busch’s record of being the winningest active driver in the Cup Series with 63 wins, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver must factor in one very important element: the NextGen cars.

Spire Motorsports #7 Star has a strong opinion on Denny Hamlin’s 60

At 43, Denny Hamlin is only getting better with each passing year. Since the introduction of the NextGen car, the #11 driver has made his mark with 6 wins, falling just short of the Championship 4 in both 2022 and 2023. This is the first time since his last Daytona 500 triumph four years ago, when he won a race only five weeks into the season. 

So this raises the question of whether the #11 can rack up eight wins and speed past this year’s Daytona 500 winner, William Byron, with six wins in the Next-Gen car last year to make it a solid 60 for Denny as early as the end of this year. Spire Motorsports #7 Camaro ZL1 driver in the Cup Series, Corey LaJoie, and his co-host Ryan Flores discussed exactly this with an expert lens on their podcast, “Stacking Pennies,” recently.

Flores raised the question with LaJoie. He asked, “Denny’s 52nd win. He wants to get to 60. Do you think he can get 8 more this year?” The #7 had a resounding refusal to answer his co-host’s question, “No. Nobody’s seen double digits with the NextGen car.” As the conversations progressed, Flores went on to observe how “nobody’s done it in the next-gen car but Kyle Larson… He got 10”. This happened right before the switch from Generation 6 to Generation 7 (Next-Gen) cars in 2022. 

However, Lajoie also acknowledged the fact that Joe Gibbs Racing’s #11 team is almost unstoppable this season, when he said, “If any team can do it. It’s him and that #11 team, they are so strong on pit road, they are so strong on the box, and obviously, Denny’s locked in right now.“

As Flores continued on LaJoie’s initial statement, he also mentioned one more very integral part of Denny Hamlin’s 2024 charge: Chris Gabehart.

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Gabehart has been the foundation for 21 of Denny Hamlin’s impressive victories since he took over as crew chief of the #11 car for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2019. This feat also makes them the best-average crew-chief duo since that time. 

After Bristol’s tire debacle, Denny Hamlin, as well as the entire Joe Gibbs Racing contingent, stood out from the rest of the field. The #11 Toyota emerged as the prime contender at the end of a controversial yet exciting event, courtesy of the new Goodyear tires.

The victorious crew chief had his own statements to make, as per the official NASCAR website: “No one. There‘s not a single driver, single crew chief, engineer that planned on this. You calibrate your entire world around a certain set of parameters for Bristol. It was pretty clear right after practice, again pretty clear after 80 laps into the race, all of that had to go out the window.”

Nevertheless, his #11 driver was all praise for the superstar crew chief, as he stated, “He did a great job of just updating me with every pit stop what was going on with the tires.” Will the JGR duo win eight races to mark Denny’s 60th? LaJoie had realistically replied, “I think he goes 5 or 6,” at least.

Read More: Denny Hamlin Holds Goodyear Accountable for Bristol Tiregate After NASCAR’s ’Biggest Teaching Moment’