Kevin Harvin reacts to Denny Hamlin post-race reaction: 'Time is clicking down'

When Denny Hamlin is at his best he’s as good as any driver on the NASCAR circuit. It’s been a minute now since he has gotten truly hot, though.

So far this season Hamlin has interspersed a pair of top-10 finishes (2nd and 6th) with more lackluster outings (21st and 24th). He just hasn’t quite looked fully in sync.

Sunday at Phoenix felt like a little bit of a missed opportunity. Denny Hamlin raced Christopher Bell to the line and came up a little short.

“I think I’ve been in that position that Denny’s in, when that number’s clicking down and you’re going through another race that you had an opportunity to win,” Kevin Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “It’s not always, ‘We have next year.’ And Denny’s running out of opportunities to not only win a championship but to win races. And he wants to win races. He’s capable of winning races.”

Hamlin was fully en fuego early last season. He won at Bristol, then won two weeks later at Richmond. Fast forward a month to Dover and he won again, then put together a string of five straight top-five finishes.

Again, when he’s on, he’s on. Harvick just wonders if Denny Hamlin is beginning to feel some pressure.

“It’s like we talked previously on some of these shows, as you get closer to the end and people know that you’re thinking about retiring it becomes harder to get good people, it becomes harder to get motivated people,” Harvick said. “The team starts to understand — and they’re going to give him a great effort, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want this to be steered in Joe Gibbs Racing not giving him an effort — but you know in your head the clock’s ticking down.

“We all know where Denny’s contract is and how many years he has left at Gibbs and all the things that go with that, so when you have those moments slip away like Denny Hamlin had slip away of being able to capitalize and win a race. Denny winning that race would have completely quieted all the noise about everything that is going on with his new team and new scenarios and not having won a race and all that talk. You know as a veteran in Denny’s case, not only are they counting down, but you also know you won’t have to answer as many questions next week if you would just get to victory lane. It fixes so many scenarios.”

In the meantime, all Denny Hamlin can do is keep his head down and keep racing. He’ll have his opportunities coming up.

Road courses like COTA aren’t really his strength. At Phoenix, there were other factors.

“I don’t think he had a winning car,” Harvick said. “I think there was a lot of things that happened at the end of that race that took three or four of those guys out. But when he got to the front row and the money was on the line, business picked up. The pay window was open. My man was on the gas. He knows that those moments are getting less and less to capitalize on, not only race wins but putting himself in contention to try to win another championship and quiet the noise.”

Can Denny Hamlin do it this week in Las Vegas? Maybe next week at Homestead, a track he has historically done very well at and has won at in the past?

We’ll see. But the longer it takes, the more the pressure will mount.