CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Every NASCAR fan has seen aging drivers stay in the seat far past their prime.
It wasn't pretty sometimes as the drivers struggled to qualify for races, found themselves struggling to stay on the lead lap, and more often than not their finish didn’t reflect the competitiveness they once showed.
Denny Hamlin doesn’t want to be that guy.
He’s 45, the oldest full-time active driver in the Cup Series, and is in the first year of a two-year
contract that he says will be his last at NASCAR’s top level.
But he can’t stop winning — Sunday's victory at Pocono Raceway was his fourth of the season, not including the non-points All-Star race, and third in a row — and with it comes questions Hamlin must answer about his future as a race car driver.
“We joked, we were like, ‘You’re a spring chicken, you have so many years left,’” said Joe Gibbs Racing co-owner Heather Gibbs. “Now we’re trying to think of how we can keep him longer.”
But Hamlin does have an expiration date as he's said since announcing this two-year extension with JGR last year that 2027 will be his final season. He signed that contract before he came moments away from finally winning his first Cup championship in last year's six-win season.
He signed that contract before he tied former teammate Kyle Busch for ninth on the all-time wins list with 63 victories two weeks ago.
He signed that contract before he won Sunday at Pocono — his eighth career win at the Pennsylvania track — to move ahead of Busch for sole possession of ninth place.
Now he's on a hot streak and joined the club of Hall of Famers Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip as drivers to win three consecutive races. Tyler Reddick, who drives for Hamlin and co-owner Michael Jordan at 23XI Racing, won the first three races of this season, and JGR teammate Christopher Bell won three in a row in 2025.
Now Hamlin is on his own hot streak and is asked about that expiration date on his driving career every weekend.
“If — and that’s a big if — I’m at this point and this fast at this point next year, it would be a tough, tough decision,” he said. “Because, again, I’m planning for the downfall that I know will come.”
Hamlin has seen firsthand what happens to drivers who stay in the seat past their prime: Jimmie Johnson won three times in the 2017 season following his seventh championship, then failed to win again over the final 95 races of his full-time career.
Petty and Waltrip both went winless in their final eight Cup seasons, and Waltrip even had to buy his way into a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway when he failed to qualify on speed. Petty himself admitted he should have gotten out of the car sooner.
"The longer we run, the slower I got,” Petty said. “I should have seen it coming enough to say, ‘I don’t need to be doing this.’ But again, I love to drive the race car so much that if they hadn’t made me, I’d probably still be driving.”
Hamlin will be 47 years old at the end of his contract with a resume of three Daytona 500 victories, a winning record that makes him a future Hall of Famer, and a race team he's built with Basketball Hall of Famer Jordan that has Reddick leading the current Cup Series points standings.
Hamlin’s legacy is secure regardless of whether he ever wins the elusive Cup championship that has defined so many of the discussion around his career. The absence of a title shouldn’t diminish what he has accomplished, and NASCAR history is filled with extraordinary drivers whose greatness transcended a single statistic.
He doesn't believe "we’re going to be at this level at this time next year” and Gibbs eventually has to plan for a future without Hamlin. But he doesn't completely close the door on walking away, insisting he'll honor his commitment to Gibbs through 2027 and the team owner can check back with Hamlin on his thought process in six months.
But what Hamlin doesn't want to do is stick around too long. He's built a race team he can focus on and a life that doesn't involve 100% dedication to his craft.
No matter how many times he wins the rest of this season or next, the one and only thing that should make him reconsider retirement is winning the 2027 Cup title. Should he do that, then perhaps he returns for 2028 for a shot to defend the crown.
Anything shy of that and Hamlin should walk away while he's still at the top of his game.
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