When the margins in NASCAR are razor-thin, how does a team find the race-winning difference? Is it the driver? Or is it the car? Well, for Denny Hamlin last week at the Goodyear 400, it was his pit crew that made the difference in the final moments on the track. And he wasn’t hiding his feelings about it. “Man, the pit crew just did an amazing job. They won it last week. They won it this week. It’s all about them,” he exclaimed after the race.
But Hamlin isn’t just part of one team, is he? Sure, he drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, but he’s also the owner of 23XI Racing.
It’s been a team that has historically struggled with pit stops, and Hamlin knows this well. Back in 2023, despite strong showings from Tyler Reddick, there were strong results the team missed out on due to pit crew errors. At the Michigan International Speedway, Reddick and the #45 team saw a positive result slip out of their hands due to a lose wheel. At the time, Hamlin didn’t mince any words. “It’s frustrating from my standpoint because I’ve lived through it myself. I know what Tyler’s going through and the emotion that you have. And Bubba, too. It’s free spots to the competition. So, it is a process. It’s going to take years. I can’t emphasize how much time it takes. But our ownership has bought into the fact of investing into our pit crews into the future and what we need to do to make it better, and we’re going to do that.”
Cut to 2025, and Hamlin thinks those problems are in a much better spot. Speaking about it ahead of the Food City 500, he said, “ It’s certainly encouraging to see because we definitely put a lot of effort into it, not just money. Whether it’s recruiting people or getting them to trust in us that we have a process. A lot of the tricky things that you see on the pit road these days came from 23XI. There are a lot of things that they’re really being innovative in, and certainly it’s exciting to see it play out on Sundays. And knowing that your cars are contenders on the race track is one thing, because Michael said one time we’re only going to be able to sell the dream for so long. You’ve got to live. You’ve got to be the dream.”
The change has been clear. If we look at data from the 2024 season, particularly for Tyler Reddick, there’s a difference fans can see. Last year, at the Darlington Raceway in May, the #45 pit crew put out a 9.275-second stop, the fastest by any team at the track. As Jordan had explained, for them, it is important to show what they can do. And Jordan tries to inspire his team, standing with the pit crew watching the race. Despite this, there have been moments when the team has been mediocre as well. For instance, in the same year, for Reddick, the crew’s 11.207-second average stop for all four tires ranked them 18th overall.
However, as Hamlin explained, things are changing. “We really feel like we’re taking the next step and the pit crew was the next step for that organisation to get better. We knew we were building fast cars but we as the team, I thought was letting our drivers down for a couple years. That was just part of the building process, you know. They understood when they signed on that this is something that was going to take time to get better and they were very patient with us.”
So what’s the big change? Well, 23XI Racing used to contract pit crew members from Joe Gibbs Racing. However, they’ve started their own training program, with Josh Shipplett leading the charge. Shipplett has seen plenty of wins, and he was a part of Hamlin’s 2019 and 2020 Daytona 500 wins. And there are already big things happening
Steve Lauletta, president of 23XI Racing, revealed this, “I think it is part of how we are looking at everything here. We have an engineer that worked in DTM (German grand touring car series). We have a mechanic from Formula One. It’s the way Denny is looking at it. This is where his input is so beneficial. He’s been around it long enough and he has a vision of how he wants the leadership and the people here to work together, collectively as one team in 23XI.”
Now that even Bubba Wallace has started to pick up the pace, having a reliable pit crew will be vital for the team, especially if they’re in contention for the playoffs. As for Denny Hamlin, he is gearing up for another shot at victory at the Food City 500.
Denny Hamlin looks to match Christopher Bell
When Denny Hamlin said, “Let me just educate folks and the conspiracy theorists. I am a competitive person, as you may know. There is nobody that I hate seeing win more than my teammate,” fans felt what he meant. After all, he was the veteran driver in the team, and Christopher Bell, with his three victories coming back-to-back, was showing himself as another leader in the team.
Well, Hamlin has answered those doubters with two wins on the trot. First, the Cook Out 400 was about showing his skills, and the Goodyear 400 was about his race intelligence. Now, with his ever-favorite track Bristol up next, we can’t help but wonder, is it going to be Denny Hamlin making it three consecutive victories? The spring race last year saw Hamlin lead 163 laps. The race before that one, from September 2023, had him leading 142 laps. “I beat your favorite driver. All of them,” he had taunted the crowd, but can he do the same this year?
Speaking about his prospects at the Food City 500, Hamlin said, “I try not to psych myself out too much about it because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those type of situations, and you end up making silly mistakes. I just try to be as even keeled as I can. It is a new week. It is another great opportunity to win another race. If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and a very proud moment in my career, but it is not something that we set out to do each and every week.”
Only time will tell if Hamlin can get three in a row. Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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