Denny Hamlin says he's been 'very open' with Netflix crews
Denny Hamlin is giving Netflix crews the access they need to make something special with their upcoming NASCAR series.
After the continued success of Formula 1: Drive to Survive on the streaming service, it was announced NASCAR would participate in a similar show for their Playoffs in 2023. While much has been kept under wraps, Hamlin provided some insight into the series earlier this week.
“It’s going good. I’ve been very open to those guys, and certainly, if you’ve seen around the race-track, they’ve usually got a couple, about three guys, following us around, and it’s — I don’t know how many crews they have, but I’ve seen — I work specifically with this one crew. I see that there’s alternate crews, of maybe like, two or three others. I’m not really sure. But I’m assigned this one, and they’ve been great to work with,” Hamlin explained, via his Actions Detrimental podcast. “All those guys are just like, awesome. Like I talk to them when we’re not filming. They’re all really cool guys. So they’ve been following me around for, is it a couple months now? Yeah, it’s probably been a couple months. Few races before the start of the Playoffs. The intensity of them filming is going to keep ramping up, as it trickles down.
“You always, you want to be, one of the goals in racing is you always want to be part of the story, the entire season. There’s a handful of them that got eliminated in the Round of 12. Even if you get eliminated in the Round of 8, you’re only irrelevant for one race, because you’re still part of the story for 35 of the 36 races. So it’s really important, for us and certainly for our team, to participate in it. We think it’s a big part of a potential NASCAR growth moment. So we want to give them great access. You hear guys like Joey [Logano] saying, ‘I don’t like it, it’s a little too invasive.’ I mean, that’s where you’re going to get the content though, is letting them in on your day. Not changing what you do, just because film crews are around.”
The rise of sports documentaries has been a sight to see, and NASCAR getting in on the game with a high-quality one pertaining to their Playoffs is a fantastic idea.
We can’t wait to see what NASCAR and Netflix are cooking up, and what Denny Hamlin spews with a camera following him around for the last couple months.