NASCAR’s Daytona 500 race winner Denny Hamlin’s dream truly came to fruition on February 21. Since he was knee high to a grasshopper, the young Hamlin had a love for cars and for racing. It has been a part of Hamlin’s life since anyone in his family can remember. His mom, after his Daytona 500 triumph, produced a letter he wrote as a young boy in elementary school to prove it. It reads…
The Daytona 500
“My wish is to win the Daytona 500. If I won the Daytona 500, I would like it to come true on February 17, 1998. My car would be red, white, blue and gold. Just like Bill Elliott’s car. If I do win the Daytona 500, I could win 1,000,000 dollars. My crew chief would be Gary Barden and my tire changer would be Ernie Elliott. The reason for all of this is because I love racing.”
Denny Hamlin was born in Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1980. Shortly after he moved with his parents and grew up in Chesterfield, Virginia. Hamlin began his racing career as most young kids do, by starting off at the most basic level of racing, go-karts. Winning races as young as seven years old set the standards for Hamlin and what he wanted to accomplish as he grew older.
When he was 16 years old the transplanted Floridian had worked his way up to driving NASCAR Ministocks. In his very first Ministock race at Langley Speedway in Virginia, he qualified on the pole and won the race outright.
In 2000, Hamlin moved into Late Model Stock Cars and won ten races in the next two years. 2003 was truly a turning point for the young driver as he won 25 of the 36 races he competed in and sat on the pole for 30 of those races. Those outstanding accomplishments were enough for Joe Gibbs Racing to take notice. The next year he was signed to a developmental driver contract with the long time NASCAR team owner.
“Denny started racing with us in the Craftsman Truck Series that year, and he knocked out Top 10’s in equipment that really wasn’t the best stuff because we were leasing it,” Gibbs said. “Clearly he had a gift, so we took him to Darlington. I told myself and a couple of other guys that if he could finish in the Top 10 at Darlington, then we were going to put him in our Busch car for the next year.”
The newly signed speedster answered the bell. Denny Hamlin started 23rd at Darlington that year and finished a respectable eighth place, at a track that has been nicknamed the track to tough to tame.
The following year, Denny Hamlin competed for his new car owner in the NASCAR Busch Series, which is now named the Xfinity Series. The up-and-coming speedster raced a full season for Joe Gibbs Racing and reeled in 11 top tens and over $1M in earnings. Hamlin took 5th place that year, which was unheard of as a rookie at that time. He would race full time in the series two years later and drive to his first victory.
2005 was the year that Denny Hamlin finally got the chance to prove himself on the big stage. The Chesterfield prodigy raced in seven NEXTEL Cup races that year. NEXTEL was the sponsor then as Sprint is the sponsor now. Hamlin recorded three top 10’s in those seven starts and captured the pole for his first race at Phoenix Speedway.
The seven NEXTEL Cup races in 2005 were enough for Joe Gibbs to sign on Hamlin as a full time driver in NASCAR’s big boy circuit. At Pocono Speedway on June 11th of 2006, Hamlin sat on the pole and won his first NEXTEL Cup race. Later in that same year, in the second race at Pocono in the summer, Hamlin won again. The up and coming racer became only the second rookie to sweep both races in a NASCAR Series schedule since Jimmy Johnson did it at Dover Speedway in 2002.
From 2007 to present day Denny Hamlin has been a fixture atop the leader boards year in and year out. In 2009 Hamlin finished fifth overall collecting four wins and 15 top fives and 20 top tens. In 2010 the FEDEX #11 finished second by just 39 points, in the last race at Homestead in Miami, to future Hall of Fame driver Jimmy Johnson. Hamlin has been responsible for Joe Gibbs Racing’s 100th win first and only victory at the Daytona 500 in 2016.
After ten full seasons in NASCAR’s premier series, Denny Hamlin has all the right components to win it all. He is aggressive enough to get the job done at all the different NASCAR venues and is part of 2015’s most successful team. Going into Charlotte this week he sits first in points and carries all the momentum one could want from winning the first and biggest race of the year at the Daytona 500.
Denny Hamlin’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Stats:
Cup Wins: 26
Xfinity Wins: 14
Cup Top 5′s: 105
Cup Poles: 23
