One would not want to be in Denny Hamlin’s shoes right now. On one hand, he has a lawsuit against NASCAR that could derail his ownership aspirations with 23XI Racing if things go south. On the other lies a 20-race winless streak and a 30-point buffer over the cutline as he heads to the Charlotte ROVAL to lock his #11 team into the Round of 8. Naturally, the question to ask would be: is a 30-point cushion enough with guys like Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney on his tail? But that’s not what we’re looking at.

Zooming out on the issue, it appears Hamlin isn’t the only Camry XSE driver riding a rough patch. As Lee Spencer of SiriusXM pointed out to the man himself during the pre-race presser, ” (Joe Gibbs Racing) Toyotas haven’t won since (Christopher) Bell’s victory at Loudon.” Regardless. Hamlin remains unfazed in the foreground of this unnatural dry spell for the collective.

Engine troubles, winless streak, and road courses threaten Denny Hamlin’s year

Those who’ve been following the Toyota Racing Development contingent in 2024 will know that the sport’s only foreign OEMs are drowning in engine troubles this season. Let’s take Denny Hamlin’s L2 penalty for that misplaced Food City 500-winning engine, for example. That penalty set him back 10 Playoff points and a legitimate shot at the regular season championship after Toyota self-reported the infraction to NASCAR. In addition, Chris Gabehart, the #11 team crew chief, received a $100,000 fine for something that did not seem to be his fault.

Although retiring TRD President David Wilson accepted sole responsibility for the mistake, NASCAR would also rescind Denny Hamlin’s Bristol win from Playoff eligibility. But that’s barely scratching the surface. On a closer look, all four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas have faced some kind of engine problem in the 2024 season. As recent as the Playoff opener in Atlanta, the cars of Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs, and Hamlin faced plug-wire issues and were all sent to start from the rear for unapproved adjustments. That’s way too many issues for a manufacturer who came into the 2024 season with just two engine failures the year prior.

And on top of that, since dominating a third of all races up to Week 18, the TRD camp hasn’t been able to break into victory lane even once. Now, with just four races left to secure a spot in the Championship 4, and all these factors in the background, Lee Spencer asked Denny Hamlin, “Do you still have the same level of confidence in the speed of your cars for the final five races as you did going into the season?” To which, Hamlin lamented, “It’s been a minute for sure, for any of our cars to get to Victory Lane. And certainly above and beyond that, we just haven’t won as many races through the summer, and months is what we were planning on.”

“It’s for various reasons, but obviously yeah, I mean when we look at kind of how the tracks layout, we haven’t had that all-out speed, that you know, we’ve seen in years past,” said the #11 driver. “Still, I haven’t gone to the racetrack any weekend and thought you know my car wasn’t capable of winning. We just haven’t done it. And none of our Toyotas have done it.” Hence, Denny Hamlin believes “it’s up to [the drivers] and the teams to be better and finish it all for Toyota.” And they must. All the mechanical gremlins, in some form or the other, have eliminated the Toyotas of Martin Truex Jr and Ty Gibbs. from the playoff field.

Heading to Charlotte Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell & Tyler Reddick are the only Toyota-backed drivers above the cutline. To maintain their numbers in representation, all three of them must run strong this Sunday. Now, the #20 of Christopher Bell has won at the ROVAL before in 2022, along with the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte earlier this year. And the #45 of Tyler Reddick is always one to watch on road courses with three wins on non-ovals in his Cup Series career. The 23XI Racing wheelman has finished outside the top 10 only once since his debut on Charlotte’s ROVAL layout in 2019.

However, Denny Hamlin himself is very average on NASCAR road courses, to say the least. His solo win at Watkins Glen in 2016 was hardly a fluke. But his results turning right haven’t been all that nice on the cumulative either. Out of all 53 road course races he’s run so far in the Cup Series, he’s finished inside the top 10 less than half as many times. At the 2023 ROVAL race, Hamlin ran top-10 the entire day. But it was almost as if luck did not wish to shine on the #11 car, and he wrecked out in the final stage. Knowing all this, one could never count out another TRD engine failure transpiring for the #11 team this weekend. After all, his last major in-race power plant problem happened at the road race at Sonoma on Lap 2.

But as it would appear, Toyota Racing Development has already found the problem, although Denny Hamlin might still be at a disadvantage.

The new ROVAL: A playground or a minefield for Toyotas?

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Tyler Reddick will roll off the grid second beside pole-winner Shane van Gisbergen for the Bank of America ROVAL 400, while Christopher Bell starts 12th. Contrarily, Denny Hamlin will be mid-pack in P18 when the field takes the green. And some would suggest that making up that deep a deficit in track position on a road course is enough to throw the #11 driver a few curveballs during the race. Especially with the new track layout, and all the concerns Hamlin has voiced about it.

Sharper chicanes. A new chute section with a hairpin left-hander on Turn 7. Cars going airborne—the new ROVAL has brought forth plenty of questions. But until all 38 cars go to battle against each other on Sunday, the true impact of the changes exists only in imagination. But the bigger question stands: will either of the 8 Toyotas in the 38-car field find their biggest adversary in the engines?

Back in August, after TRD faced a lot of flak for their stacking engine troubles, Tyler Gibbs, GM of Toyota, also the man touted to replace David Wilson as President at the end of this season, had revealed to RACER.com, “If we didn’t beforehand, we certainly now have a concern with our valve springs… The root cause seems to be some inconsistency in the quality of our valve springs. We are working closely with our suppliers to correct these issues…”

That was before the Firekeepers Casino 400 at Michigan a few weeks ago. Hence, Gibbs had noted, “We sent a TRD ‘fire-team’ from our Costa Mesa (Calif.) engine shop to make tuning updates to all our engines heading into Michigan this weekend. We are confident that this remediation step will give us the durability margin we need.” Interestingly enough, the #45 Camry XSE of Tyler Reddick visited Victory Lane on that opportune Sunday in MIS. But can his TRD counterparts pull another rabbit out of the hat this weekend at Charlotte? We find out at 2 PM ET as NBC Sports takes the action live on our TV screens.