Denny Hamlin explains why 'everyone should care about' NASCAR driver salaries increasing

Off the track, Denny Hamlin and his 23XI Racing organization are involved in an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR. Hamlin believes that his legal efforts could open the door for driver salaries to go up, and ultimately, salaries of everyone in the industry.

There was a time when NASCAR drivers made insanely high salaries, on par with other major athletes. However, in recent years, while other sports are seeing record contracts for top-level athletes and below, NASCAR has seen salaries wither.

Denny Hamlin is making the case that teams need more revenue. If operating costs were met by NASCAR, then that money could be spent on drivers. It could even be spent on engineers, mechanics, and other crew members. Raising pay across the board.

“Why the drivers should care is because when the teams are healthy, we are going to pay more for their services. That is just normal, that’s just normal protocol,” Hamlin said on Actions Detrimental. “And you’ve seen over time and driver salaries have gone down. I know that DBC talks about this quite often, you know, team mechanics their salaries have gone down, crew chiefs’ have gone down, everyone in our sport has gone down, except for one party, and that’s the party that’s on the other end of this, other end of this lawsuit.”

Those parties would be NASCAR and Jim France.

Drivers aren’t making as much as they used to

Denny Hamlin made a few points during his rant over driver pay. But the one thing that stuck out was the range he put the drivers’ salaries on. You have the top tier, which is keeping pace more or less with what the high end has always been.

Then you have drivers who are making less than crew members?

“So, everyone should care because the teams are the ones that have shouldered the burden of our revenue going down and down and down over time,” Hamlin explained. “So, what happens is, your drivers are typically one of your biggest ticket items, right, of things you have to pay. You pay the drivers what you can afford to pay them.

“Every team is different and driver salaries are on a very wide spectrum. There’s some at the very, very top that are still you know, close, they’re close, they’re not at the peak of what it used to be but it’s close to it. And you’ve really got another tier of, yeah they’re kind of in the middle of, you know, it’s good not great. Then you’ve got a lot of the field that’s not making as much as an engineer makes. It’s really, really dispersed throughout the field.”

Kyle Larson mentioned that many drivers will take a big pay cut to drive in the Cup Series. That kind of practice only drives rates down. Hamlin is putting that into perspective here.

Denny Hamlin wants to hire the best talent

When it comes to motorsports, funding is major. If you can’t pull sponsorship down, then landing a top ride is tough. Only the truly elite drivers are able to land rides without much personal funding or sponsorship.

However, Denny Hamlin believes that can change. If teams make more money and are able to take money that would be spent elsewhere and apply it to driver salaries, things will get better. The on-track product will be better.

“Yeah so what that does is allow us then to hire the best talent. Best talent available,” the 23XI co-owner said. “We’re not, at that point we won’t be looking for, well, does it financially make sense to hire this driver, right? We’re just going to say, if we’re in a healthier spot, we’re going to say, ‘Give me the best guy.’ And if there’s one or two people that are head and shoulders above the rest, I’m going to pay a s*** ton for that guy. Because he’s going to make the difference on my race team.”

His message from this: everyone should care. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

“Drivers, crew chiefs, all of them. Everyone should care about this because it affects everyone in the long run.”