Following his 63rd Cup Series win in the Firekeepers 400 at Michigan International Speedway Sunday night, Denny Hamlin had his No. 11 team bring him out a flag with the No. 18 on it.
Hamlin’s 63rd win tied him with the late Kyle Busch, who passed away two weeks ago from complications stemming from pneumonia. It’s a number the veteran driver didn’t know he would ever match. Last year, in the runup to his closest shot at a championship, he took ownership of 10th on the all-time win list, and now he’s tied with Busch at ninth.
Earlier this weekend, Richard Childress shared that the Tuesday before his passing, Kyle Busch said that if RCR kept delivering him his No. 8 with top-ten speed like they did the three prior weeks, he would be back in The Chase this year. With things falling into place, there was a chance for Busch to add to the buffer between him and Hamlin. His former teammate knows this.
“Truthfully, I had to outlive him to tie him,” Hamlin told NASCAR on Prime. “He was an amazing teammate. He taught me so much at racetracks like this, I can’t say enough.”
“The NASCAR community in general has had a tough six, eight months. I know I went through it with my family this offseason. Losing Ned Jarrett, ‘The Gentleman’, this week, and thinking about Dale [Jarrett] and Glenn [Jarrett] and his whole family as well.”
The NASCAR garage has been a place of compounding grief following the loss of Greg Biffle and his family members in a plane crash right before Christmas, to the passing of Hamlin’s own father in a house fire not even two weeks later, to the shocking death of Kyle Busch 17 days ago, to the passing of the former driver of the No. 11, Ned Jarrett, on Thursday.
There’s no room to grieve between races, and at the same time, Hamlin’s on-track success was set to hit this important milestone.
Following his last-to-first run last week in Nashville, Hamlin knew there was a chance he would go back-to-back at Michigan, tying Busch with just three Cup races since his passing. Hamlin wanted to be prepared, so at the start of the week, he put a plan in place to have a win flag ready - one that honored Busch instead of his own accomplishment.
“We win last week and I said ‘I want to have a flag. I want to have a hat,’” Hamlin recounted. “We better get on it quick because we might win next week. And so I’m glad it all came together. And then I’m debating about designs. ‘What do I do? Do I do the No. 8? Do I do No. 18?’”
Hamlin settled on both, using the Joe Gibbs Racing stylized 1 for the start of the number in white and the Richard Childress Racing stylized 8 in red, showing respect for Busch’s past and his most recent journey with RCR.
“I know him as the No. 18, but the recent community knows him as the No. 8. And it’s like I felt like we struck a happy balance, and I appreciate RCR and Richard [Childress] and Austin [Dillon], his whole team, for letting us do the stylized eight.”
Hamlin sat at the NASCAR on Prime desk post-race, wearing his amalgamated No. 18 Busch hat, and talked about what it means to hit the newest rung on the all-time list.
“I mean I think it’s really gratifying,” Hamlin said of his continued success. “There’s points in my career where I’ve felt very confident going to the racetrack. I’ve always been confident, but now it’s like if we’re going somewhere fast and goes left, it’s like the only thing that’s going to keep us from winning is us. I just feel that strong right now. So it’s a little bit of why on that last run I wanted to just pound it as hard as I could and to let everyone know that you still got a ways to go.”
With all this success, Hamlin can still hear the clocks ticking - and not just his five grandfather clocks. He wants to go out on top as successfully as possible. These last two races add to his confidence while also putting him in a unique situation, as he is likely battling for his first championship against his 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick, who aims to do the same.
“I mean, I want it to come down to the two of us for the regular season,” Hamlin said. “I want it to come down to the two of us for the championship. I mean I of course selfishly want to get it for myself only. He’s got many more years to win lots of races and a championship. I’ve got just two left.”
Hamlin was pushed by the Prime broadcast - which included retired driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hamlin’s former JGR teammate Martin Truex Jr. - about how serious he was about leaving at the end of 2027, and he reiterated that it would be a fairytale to go out at the top of his game.
Minus the elusive championship, Hamlin has crossed off most of his musts for a successful NASCAR career. He could easily grab full ownership of ninth on the win list, but he’s 10 wins away from climbing to the next rung, held by the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.
