In light of Stewart-Haas charter sell off, Denny Hamlin has beef with new NASCAR mandate

Denny Hamlin is a team owner and with the Stewart-Haas Racing charters on the market, he could be interested in purchasing. Is NASCAR keeping 23XI Racing from its full potential with a new mandate in the upcoming charter agreement?

Rumors are swirling about the potential new charter agreement. Apparently, NASCAR wants to limit teams to just three charters in the future with Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing to be grandfathered in as the only remaining four-car teams.

For Denny Hamlin, it only gives HMS and JGR an advantage.

“I think this is part of a grander plan from Jim France and what he wants. The problem is you’ve already got four [car] teams,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “So, if you limit to three in the future, it will always be an advantage to then have four.”

Hamlin followed up on his thoughts. An extra car means more data and data is king in modern NASCAR. If you know what to do with it, anyway.

“It’s more data points. … [Stewart-Haas is] in a little different situation, a little different situation. They’ve, it’s just different, it’s different. They were really good for a while and then it tailed off. Again, what’s going to happen then is if you cap it at three and say, ‘That’s all you can do. 23XI you can only be three for the rest of your lives.’ I’m going to say ‘Okay, how am I going to beat Gibbs and Hendrick then?’

“I mean, it’ll be tough and especially if they’re trying to put some sort of salary cap or something into this thing. It’s always going, you’re going to have more resources. The numbers are just going to keep going up, the more you have, the more you have. So, I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that for sure, for sure, but…”

There is a big reason why Denny Hamlin allied with Joe Gibbs Racing when he started 23XI. They have what he doesn’t.

Denny Hamlin: 23XI pays JGR for data to be competitive

Jared Allen, Denny’s co-host on the podcast was good at bouncing questions back at Hamlin. What’s the difference if a team has four cars when a two-car team like 23XI Racing sits in on the meetings with Joe Gibbs Racing?

Well, Hamlin and 23XI pay a pretty penny for that info, and for good reason.

“Because we deem it necessary to compete against them, is we need to have more data points,” he explained. “So, we pay a fee to Joe Gibbs Racing every year to have access to those meetings and look at their data. We pay a big fee for it.”

Denny Hamlin was adamant about his point – Hendrick and Gibbs will have an inherent advantage.

“The problem with that is the point of entry into the sport will be extremely, extremely hard,” Hamlin said. “Because we, having an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing made it easier for us to come in. If I had to build all of the infrastructure which Joe Gibbs Racing has, because I think they manufacture about, this is a very rough number, like 200 parts and pieces that help put that car together that we cannot manufacture because we don’t have the equipment to manufacture it. We just, we need them to provide that to us.”

It’s all about the data. More of it means you can draw more conclusions and come to the “solution” which is finding more speed.

“So, the more opportunities they have, the more data points, the more drivers have teammates that they can bounce each other information off of and setups off of, they’re going to have an advantage. So, grandfathering them in I guess may be a way to say thank you for all that they’ve done to build our sport up, I mean, I’m just thinking hypothetically, maybe that’s the reason for it. But it certainly makes it more difficult to compete, you know, they will always have an advantage. Doesn’t mean we can’t go out and beat them on any given week.”

Is Denny Hamlin right? Would this create an unfair advantage moving forward?