At 43, Denny Hamlin is perhaps the only veteran driver this season who looks like a genuine championship contender. While the likes of Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr have been doing well, they just haven’t reached the levels of what the #11 team has managed in 2024. What’s more impressive is that Hamlin has been able to adapt to the trends of Next-Gen racing.

However, it’s not all his doing. The mastermind behind Denny Hamlin’s resurgence this season has to be credited to his crew chief, Chris Gabehart. Although his team has been pretty competitive in all the races, Gabehart is aware of how quickly things can turn sour in the Gen 7 era of NASCAR racing. The last three weeks certainly haven’t gone according to plan for the #11 team, but he believes that they are on the right track.

Nothing is taken for granted by Hamlin and his team

With three wins in the bag and the playoffs spot secured, the team could’ve easily let their foot off the throttle and take a backseat. Rather, Gabehart and his team decided to stay focused and try to keep the streak of good results alive. It was due to this mentality that Hamlin was on a streak of top 5 runs before the Sonoma engine debacle. With a streak of three races without a top-place finish, it feels like the team has lost its winning touch. But Chris Gabehart has a rather different perspective on it.

Clarifying on his team’s recent run of sub-par results, Gabehart, via the Happy Hour podcast said, “I’ve never dealt with the conditions like this where for the first 220 laps it was X and the last 80 laps it was Y. But the bottom line is that we are executing at a really high level. Same thing at Iowa, once we got through a really shaky first stage. I was really proud of how our team rebounded, and before we got wrecked, we were passing for 6th with a shot to run top 5.”

Although he is well aware of the challenges his team will have to deal with with the Next-Gen car. Highlighting how an event that isn’t under their direct control could hamper their strong run. “But as you mentioned in the Gen 7 era, now more than ever, mistakes just cannot be tolerated. By the driver, by the team, and by circumstance on the racetrack. Maybe it’s not of your own doing, but if it drags you into it, it’s so hard to recover from. So, I think we’re right where we need to be, and that we’re capable of really good days,” Gabehart further added.

To be fair, the engine blowing up certainly left the team out of contention for points at Sonoma. At New Hampshire, they just couldn’t adapt to wet weather tires despite running well in the dry, so these two races were examples of how circumstances can get in the way of their plans. The only argument to be made was for the Iowa race, where Denny Hamlin was just out of his touch and brought home a P24 finish.

So while they are running well, they still have work to do. However, while Hamlin has struggled racing in damp conditions or on the road course races, Gabehart still feels he is better off racing to his strengths.

There is no time for experimentation at this stage of Hamlin’s career

Although Hamlin has been around NASCAR racing for quite some time, the racing itself has evolved from what he used to know. The wet weather tire race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the perfect example of how he struggles to keep up with these innovations. If you look at last Sunday’s race, Kyle Larson, who finished 4th, and winner Christopher Bell, certainly had the edge over the field, thanks to their backgrounds in sprint and dirt racing.

However, Gabehart feels that given the limited amount of time Hamlin has with his career, he can make the most of it by playing to his strengths on ovals and short tracks. “At this stage of his career, with all the other things that he’s got going on. The little bit of time he has left for his family and his business—is that the wisest use to his time? Probably not versus getting us off what our strengths are, and that is the Lion share of the schedule.”

It would be odd to see Hamlin jump in a sprint car or midget car. So he certainly is better off improving his craft with the stock car. And given that he’s shown good promise this year, who knows? He might as well go on to lift the championship trophy at the end of the season.