{"id":211617,"date":"2025-10-14T05:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T05:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/211617\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T05:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T05:44:10","slug":"hamlin-lauds-nascar-rivals-after-reaching-major-milestone-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/211617\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamlin lauds NASCAR rivals after reaching major milestone – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

In taking the checkered flag at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday<\/a>, Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin<\/a> achieved a feat most NASCAR<\/a> drivers could only dream of \u2014 tying former champion Kevin Harvick<\/a> for the 10th most Cup Series wins of all time.<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s emotional win in the Round of 8 opener<\/a> marked the 60th of his storied career, leaving him just three behind two-time champion Kyle Busch<\/a> in ninth, and 16 behind seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt in eighth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With three races still to go this season, not only could he theoretically tie Busch in ninth, but he could yet seal his first career Cup Series championship, 20 years after making his debut for JGR.<\/p>\n

But before Hamlin\u2019s mind can turn to surpassing Harvick in the leaderboard, let alone the prospect of finally becoming a champion, the 44-year-old first needs to work his way through some of the congratulatory messages received following his win in the South Point 400, including one from Harvick himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin’s just one of the best. I have a huge amount of respect for Kevin,\u201d Hamlin told reporters. \u201cJust one of the toughest competitors to beat. I felt like him and Jimmie are 1 and 1A of the toughest guys that I had to compete with and against.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI’m super humbled by it. I think that, Kevin Harvick’s probably wildly more talented than what I am. But I never would have imagined that certainly I’d get to this point or position in my career, to be in the names that I’m around now on that list is just it’s wild to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with Harvick, Hamlin noted that he\u2019d also spotted a message from former champion Martin Truex Jr., adding how he\u2019d never \u201cheard from Martin Truex\u201d previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s awesome to be one of the names on the list and certainly tie Kevin because I think that he’s one of the sport’s greatest, and I got to compete against him. I was very grateful to be able to compete against some of the sport’s best drivers,\u201d Hamlin added.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

Reaching 60 wins wasn\u2019t just important to Hamlin as it meant tying Hamlin, but also because he was able to do so during a tough moment for his family, and specifically his father, Dennis, who is \u201cnot doing well\u201d according to the No. 11 driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s the one that got me into racing and took me to a racetrack when I was five and then made all the sacrifices financially to keep me going,\u201d Hamlin recalled. \u201cThey sold everything they had, and we almost lost our house a couple of times, and just tried to keep it all going, and so I’m just I’m glad he was able to see 60, that was super important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin now won\u2019t have to wait long to potentially surpass Harvick in the all-time leaderboard, with the Cup Series set to descend on Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, before heading to Martinsville Speedway for the Round of 8 finale a week later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In taking the checkered flag at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin achieved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,102884,3932,25423,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-211617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cup-series-wins","11":"tag-denny-hamlin","12":"tag-kevin-harvick","13":"tag-nascar","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}