Okay, maybe he doesn't win it this year, but the NASCAR veteran is feeling really good about his chances.
“It’s our year,” Denny Hamlin said at Bristol, the second time this fall he’s invoked the “our year” comment.
At almost 43 and with 51 victories in 17 full seasons, Denny Hamlin clearly is among NASCAR’s best drivers never to have won a Cup Series title.put him solidly in that unofficial category with retired driver Mark Martin and the late Junior Johnson. Denny Hamlin has finished in the top-10 in NASCAR Cup Series points an astonishing 15 times in his career.He’s often said he’s not overly-concerned by the absence of a Bill France Trophy in his trophy room. Only he knows if that’s deep-down true, or whether it’s simply his way of wearing combat gear while whistling past the graveyard. If things continue as they have been in recent weeks, though, he might not have to worry much longer about that “… never having won…” label.
Hamlin has been among the Championship 4 finalists three times in the past four years. He finished 10th in the 2019 finale, when Kyle Busch won the Cup and the race. In 2020, when Chase Elliott won the race and the Cup, Hamlin was fourth at the checkers. He was third at the end of the 2021 race, when Kyle Larson won the race and the title. He missed last year, whenat Martinsville kept him from contending in the finale at Phoenix.