LONG POND, Pa. (AP) \u2014 With every Denny Hamlin victory, speculation about his future grows and talks of retirement are questioned.<\/p>\n
He signed a two-year extension with Joe Gibbs Racing that runs through 2027 and he insists it will be his last season. At 45, he\u2019s the oldest full-time Cup Series driver in the field, but he can\u2019t stop winning.<\/p>\n
Hamlin won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway on Sunday for his third consecutive victory and passed the late Kyle Busch for sole possession of ninth place on the all-time wins list.<\/p>\n
Hamlin last week won his 63rd race in NASCAR\u2019s top series to tie his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate on the all-time wins list. His eighth career victory at Pocono pushed him ahead of Busch for sole possession of ninth.<\/p>\n
His recent success \u2014 it is his fourth win of the season, not including the non-points All-Star race \u2014 has renewed talk that Hamlin should reconsider retirement when his deal with Gibbs expires.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for Denny, he wants to leave on top, right? He doesn\u2019t want to leave where it was one year too long,\u201d said JGR co-owner Heather Gibbs. \u201cAt this rate, what he\u2019s producing out there, it\u2019s not something you would not consider. We want the best drivers in our cars. Our teams work to put the best cars on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it works out and he\u2019s still producing and he wants to, it\u2019s a huge commitment for him, he\u2019s got his own team that he kind of wants to run. It\u2019s hard when you dangle checkered flags in front of him, too. He so far has put a stop to such talk despite performing at the highest level of his long career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamlin, who wasn\u2019t even sure he wanted to return to honor this two-year extension after losing the championship in last November\u2019s season finale and then the December death of his father in a house fire, understands he\u2019s performing at a high level.<\/p>\n
But as far as continuing past 2027? It\u2019s not yet on his radar despite how strong he\u2019s been on the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would certainly say it\u2019s the best we\u2019ve been,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cWe come to the racetrack every week knowing we got a great shot to win. The team\u2019s doing an amazing job giving me exactly what I need in the car every single week. That\u2019s why we\u2019re winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s win comes nearly 20 years to the date after his first career victory, which was at Pocono on June 11, 2006. He swept the races at the Pennsylvania track that year.<\/p>\n
Hamlin said Pocono has become \u201clike a second home for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst win here, so special here. Pocono has mastered the fan experience from the crowd in the stands to the infield here,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cJust so happy for this whole Joe Gibbs Racing team. The pit crew is flawless right now. We got it all going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite 64 career victories, this marks the first time in his career that Hamlin has won three consecutive races.<\/p>\n
The feat tied Richard Petty, who did it in 1966 and 1967, Bobby Allison in 1971 and Darrell Waltrip in 1981. Petty, Allison and Waltrip are all in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
He also took a jab at NASCAR, noting that it was technically his ninth victory at Pocono, but he was stripped of the victory in 2022 when NASCAR said he and Busch\u2019s car\u2019s failed post-race inspection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey aren\u2019t getting that checkered flag back,\u201d Hamlin said.<\/p>\n
Tyler Reddick, who drives for the 23XI Racing team owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan, finished second as Toyota took the top two spots. Hamlin is now 19 points behind Reddick in the Cup Series standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is racing hard for track position. Some of it\u2019s just bad luck, I guess, where you catch cars,\u201d Reddick said. \u201cIt\u2019s a bummer. I mean, if the 11 wasn\u2019t the winner, you could consider this a good day. I know we finished second. Scoring the points we did just didn\u2019t get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Hamlin tied Busch for all-time wins last week, Hamlin celebrated with a special tribute to Busch. On Sunday, he collected the checkered flag and skipped any tributes to Busch, who died unexpectedly of sepsis at age 41 last month.<\/p>\n
Toyota drivers have won 10 of 16 races this season, and JGR has accounted for five of them.<\/p>\n
William Byron finished third in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is probably the first time in four months that I\u2019ve been able to drive the car this way, just be able to make moves and have the balance stay with me,\u201d Byron said.<\/p>\n
Byron was followed by John Hunter Nemechek in fourth in a Toyota for Legacy Motor Club. Nemechek led 42 laps Sunday \u2014 double what he\u2019s led the last two years.<\/p>\n
Kyle Larson was fifth for Hendrick and Erik Jones was sixth for Legacy as Toyota drivers took four of the top six spots.
\nBell fights through pain<\/p>\n
Christopher Bell, driving with a broken wrist after a horrific wreck last weekend at Michigan that registered as the hardest hit in the era of NASCAR\u2019s new car, led 18 late laps based on strategy but faded to a 26th-place finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly we were mired back in the 20s and so I think it was an amazing gamble,\u201d Bell said. \u201cThe situation is so hard because you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re racing for the win, if you\u2019re racing to finish the race, and so I don\u2019t stop shifting until about 10 to go. Certainly adverse conditions, like whenever people make quick moves on restarts and get put three-wide or the car gets loose, things like that are very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell expected his injured arm will be a hindrance the next two weeks as NASCAR races the street course in San Diego and the road course in Sonoma, California \u2014 two tracks where shifting is heavily used.
\nNo rain<\/p>\n
NASCAR moved the start of the race up two hours to avoid expected rain in the Pocono Mountain region that could alter the completion of the 400-mile race. By doing so, all inclement weather was avoided and the race was run without interruption.
\nUp next<\/p>\n
NASCAR makes its inaugural visit to San Diego with a first-of-its-kind street race at Naval Base Coronado. The NASCAR San Diego weekend marks the first NASCAR event ever contested on an active military base, with races Friday, Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
San Diego will host just the second street course in NASCAR\u2019s modern era. The Chicago street course hosted two national series each of the past three seasons. The race weekend will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONG POND, Pa. (AP) \u2014 With every Denny Hamlin victory, speculation about his future grows and talks of retirement are questioned. He signed a two-year extension with Joe Gibbs Racing that runs through 2027 and he insists it will be his last season. At 45, he\u2019s the oldest full-time Cup Series driver in the field, … Continue reading Denny Hamlin wins the NASCAR Cup race at Pocono for his third straight victory<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-16 22:25:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1515526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515527,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515526\/revisions\/1515527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1515526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1515526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1515526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}