Denny Hamlin weighs in on potential retirement in wake of Martin Truex Jr. decision

In the last two seasons, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. have retired from full-time NASCAR racing. Is Denny Hamlin next? The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is about to turn 44 years old. How much longer does he have in the sport?

Despite being only months younger than Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin is getting a lot more done on the track. Truex went winless this season as Hamlin racked up three wins and a victory at the Busch Light Clash.

With the early 2000s generation of rookies starting to hang up their helmets, what does Hamlin think about retirement? He addressed it on Actions Detrimental this week with Steve Letarte.

“Only on Mondays when I feel like shit. I have a bad race, my body hurts, and it’s like, uh, man,” Denny Hamlin said. “But every Sunday, I get in that car and I’m like, ‘I got a chance to win.’ And that’s just something that’s going to be hard for me to give up. Surely one day there will be a light switch that flips on that I’m no longer as quick as I was and things like that, but I still feel like I can win it, and I feel like I can win every week and that’s what drives me. Those that know me or play golf with me or play basketball with me knows I love the competition and it’s how I get my fill. And y’all asked me on the plane, would ownership fill that, if I stopped racing would ownership fill my competitive bucket?

“And I say, partially. Like, it’s still different when you go out and do it yourself. Now, I would take a lot of pride in being the owner of 23XI knowing that, alright I had my hands in all parts of building this team from scratch. From competition, challenging the crew chiefs and the engineers on their thinking, the drivers on their techniques. Like, I take a ton of pride in that. But it’s still different than doing it yourself. I think I would struggle with that part of it, and I’ve always heard people that have said, ‘When those that choose to retire, they know.’ I’m not in the know.”

Denny Hamlin has 54 career wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. He has scored in the top-10 in more than half of his races throughout his career.

This season was solid for Hamlin. However, he finished 8th in the final points standings. That is his worst season finish since the 2018 season. That is when he was 11th overall and went winless.

The second half of the season just didn’t go the way the first half did. During the summer stretch from Sonoma to Chicago, Hamlin had an average finish of 25.6 in five races. The speed on the No. 11 car just never showed up again in the same way.

So, Denny Hamlin plans to keep racing as long as he can win. Will he have a Mark Martin-like career and keep racing into his early 50s?