Denny Hamlin’s Inevitable Slump Has Finally Arrived as He Hopes to Avoid Kyle Busch’s Fate Despite Making the Playoffs

Falling to a power steering failure in Stage 3, Kyle Busch ran a top-10 car all day after rolling off the grid in a P7. Yet, somehow, he registered a P35 DNF for only the second time in three weeks in Iowa. If that wasn’t enough, the only other driver to end their race in a spot below Busch doesn’t even drive full-time in the Cup Series anymore, and his name is AJ Allmendinger. But another driver who would’ve almost ended their own Iowa advances on a DNF was Denny Hamlin.

The former Joe Gibbs teammates have been facing fairly varying circumstances, now that Busch drives Richard Childress‘s #8 Chevy as their coveted senior statesman. For the simplest example, Denny is locked into the playoffs this season with three race wins, following a frustrating day ending at P24 on the Newton racetrack’s debut as a venue for the NASCAR Cup Series. Rowdy, on the other hand, sits winless, 31 points below the cut line after Iowa.

Nevertheless, some critics suggest the slump that took Kyle Busch is finally here for Denny Hamlin. Others add that his early season hot streak will soon fizzle out, courtesy of some average performances through the last couple of weeks. However, Hamlin has never been one to bail on his fortunes, and it seems watching Busch falter at a different team has certainly taught the #11 a few lessons.

Denny Hamlin’s reality check: Is momentum only a myth in NASCAR?

If Kyle Busch had a top-10 car until its disappointing journey to the pits on Lap 272, Denny Hamlin had the opposite, as his Toyota ran a lap down since the initial stages of the Iowa Corn 350. After struggling with his tires on the first thirty circuits, Hendrick Motorsports pole-winner Kyle Larson lapped him as early as the 34th lap of the 350-lap encounter. Then the gremlins struck Kyle Busch, who reported tire issues after sliding up the track from battles in the 10th spot around Lap 270. When he went to the pits, the #3 team found a broken steering belt on their Chevy. Busch ended his day only two laps later for his second DNF of 2024.

In stark contrast, once the dust had finally settled in Hawkeye State, #11 was placed in P24 after going through a concerning wreck in Stage 2. His podcast partner, Jared Allen, considered these facts in the latest release of Actions Detrimental to shed light on the circumstances surrounding Kyle Busch. Allen compared Busch’s situation with Hamlin’s, asking the latter if “momentum (is) a thing or it just looks like that from the outside sometimes?”

Denny elaborated on his expert opinion, as he began, “I mean momentum is a thing, yes. But it’s you know the sport is still so week to week because you’re going to a different type of track the next week, right? And there’s no guarantee that you’re going to have your car handling just right, and so you can have momentum and you can be on five straight top fives and then go to Talladega and say, ‘Well we’re going to get crashed here.’ So it is a thing, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried not to, you know, harp on the bad days quite as much.” 

Consequently, Denny’s run of one race win and 4 top-5s came to a screeching halt on the Sonoma road race last week, where he recorded his second DNF of the 2024 season. Quite paradoxically, Kyle Busch finished P12 in that event.

Nevertheless, speaking about Busch’s below-average year as of late, Denny had nothing but words of encouragement to extend to his former teammate: “Yeah, they are on a slide right now for sure. And I don’t know where he was running… I saw on social media that they thought he was a top-five car. I didn’t see him most of the day because of where I was running. So I can’t really speak to that but certainly, Kyle Busch is better than his results are showing right now, and the team itself is better than the results that they’re showing…”

8 races remain to fix the #8 team’s fortunes

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Off the back of a promising P12 at Sonoma, Kyle Busch would surely have wanted to end his sorry narrative by potentially breaking his longest winless streak on the Iowa Speedway’s Cup Series debut. However, many agree that his RCR #8 Chevy has just been extremely unlucky and not up to his usually stellar standards this year. Even Derek Kneeland, spotter for Busch’s car, posted a Twitter update that aptly described their current scenario. “It could rain 100 dollar bills and we would get a penny. Unreal the luck this year we are having,” wrote Kneeland.

Kyle Busch seemed frustrated and downcast, expressing his disappointment to the media in Iowa. Mustering up his patience to the fullest, Busch then explained the cause & effects of the #8 team’s issues on Sunday. He would inform audiences via NBC Sports: “I don’t know what happened, but Next Gen parts and pieces broke…  Something in the left rear suspension; I don’t know if it was the toe link or what it was, but it changed the skew of the back of the car. So, we came in and fixed it, rolled back out, blew the power steering belt off. Just broke the belt…” 

“Frustrating, for sure,” opined Busch, echoing the general reception and hopeful of better showings in the next eight regular-season races. After all, only six spots remain for the remaining drivers in the playoff bubble to stake their claims for a championship contender spot.

The post-season starts following Darlington’s regular-season championship finale on September 1st at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. That gives Busch not even two whole months to overturn his sub-par advances. While it sure is a challenge, it would also be foolish to write off NASCAR’s winningest driver until he throws in the towel on his very own terms.