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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDenny Hamlin makes a pit stop on lap 63 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, in Avondale, Ariz. (AP Photo\/Rick Scuteri)<\/p>\n
What followed was surreal. Hamlin\u2019s young daughters sobbed uncontrollably amid a crowd of demoralized Joe Gibbs Racing crew members. Hamlin was stoic but clearly heartbroken as a sixth chance at a championship had slipped away.<\/p>\n
Larson, in the thick of a Hendrick Motorsports team celebration, even struggled with the emotions. He hadn\u2019t led a single lap at Phoenix, is stuck in a 24-race losing streak dating to May, and had just beaten his 44-year-old friend in what could have been Hamlin\u2019s last chance to win a title.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a large piece of me that feels really bad and sad,\u201d Larson said. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t win the race, you don\u2019t lead a lap, you win the championship, you steal it from a guy who has tried for so long and had it in his fingertips, it\u2019s a really weird feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byron felt awful for his role in altering the outcome, and race-winner Ryan Blaney took no joy in Hamlin\u2019s agony.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t seem right,\u201d Byron said.<\/p>\n
The final weekend of this NASCAR season was probably also the last one for this winner-take-all championship format. NASCAR has been brainstorming all year on new formats because of lukewarm fan response to the knockout 10-race system that ultimately sends a final four into the finale, highest finisher that day gets the championship.<\/p>\n
Phoenix showed exactly why the fans are fed up.<\/p>\n
Corey Heim had 11 victories at the start of the Truck Series finale Friday night but needed to dip his truck low in an outrageous seven-wide scramble in overtime to secure the title. He did pull out the win and NASCAR dodged the controversy of a 12-race winner being denied a championship because of a gimmicky format.<\/p>\n
NASCAR wasn\u2019t so fortunate the next night in the Xfinity Series when 10-race winner Connor Zilisch lost the championship because Jesse Love won the race. Love opened the season with a win at Daytona and closed it with a win at Phoenix \u2014 his only two victories of the season but good enough in the present format.<\/p>\n
Then came Hamlin\u2019s defeat on Sunday. He won a series-high six Cup races this year, started from the pole and led 208 laps only to be robbed of the title by a poorly-timed caution and the strategic decision to take four tires \u2014 a call that led to a lengthier pit stop than Larson and gave Larson the advantage. Larson finished the race in third, Hamlin in sixth.<\/p>\n
He long ago accepted he may never win a championship \u2014 Hamlin came up empty five previous times \u2014 and he\u2019s content with his 60 career wins that include three Daytona 500 victories. He recognizes that he\u2019s worked within the parameters set by NASCAR in how a champion will be crowned and he\u2019s lost playing with the same ruleset as every other competitor.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Now the rules will likely be changed this offseason, and every indication is that NASCAR is leaning towards a format that will use a four-race final push in which the winner is decided by points earned over those races.<\/p>\n
Hamlin, with a shattered heart, offered no opinion on what format he\u2019d like to see for what is likely the final few years of his driving career.<\/p>\n
\u201cGosh, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cGolly, in this moment I never want to race a car ever again. I mean, my fun meter is pegged.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) \u2014 Denny Hamlin was shell-shocked, a vacant look in his eyes, as he tried to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-259257","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-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259257","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=259257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}