Denny Hamlin reacts to winning NASCAR regular season title as owner
Denny Hamlin did not win the Southern 500 on Sunday night but did leave Darlington Raceway as a champion. Hamlin is a co-owner of 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan, and the team won the regular-season title since Tyler Reddick ended the regular season as the points leader. On X, Hamlin shared a photo of him with Jordan, Reddick and the trophy.
“Finally won a championship… as an owner,” Hamlin wrote in the post. Of course, Hamlin wants to win a championship as a driver, but winning one as an owner is significant, especially for a team that launched a few years ago. Before the race, Hamlin talked about how much a regular-season championship would mean to him as an owner.
“It means a lot, it really does. I mean, I’m very proud of what we’ve built over there [at 23XI Racing] and building it from scratch has not been easy, a lot of things take time,” Hamlin explained on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “Although we may have, there’s probably things on the list right now where, ‘Okay, here’s what I want my competition department to work on next,’ That project might take a year, two to actually finish, right? We’re just now building our pit crew facility, that’s going to take another three months. It will be done right on time, right when the season’s over. So, like, just things take time, rig
Denny Hamlin talks about growth of 23XI Racing
“So when I said it would take five years to build a championship-contending organization, I knew that was a realistic number. While it seems easy to do it quicker, it is not because starting this thing from scratch was hard because you don’t have – if you want to start a new department, well you gotta find the talent, and we’re not going to just hire people just to hire them, we’re going to make sure it’s the right people. I think Dave Rodgers and that whole team, the competition department have just done a fabulous job, putting the right people in the right places to succeed.”
23XI Racing was launched by Hamlin and Jordan in 2020. Bubba Wallace became the team’s first driver and gave the team its first win at Talladega in 2021. Reddick joined the team in 2023 and has won four races in two seasons.
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