NASCAR charter dispute will test Hamlin’s newfound patience
Denny Hamlin’s role as team owner at 23XI Racing has taught him patience, a quality he has not always been known for as a driver. Sean Gardner/Getty Images
All it took for Denny Hamlin to learn patience was becoming a NASCAR team owner.
He used to be someone who made a decision and just went with it, he admits. A knee-jerk-reaction type of personality.
“But this has definitely taught me to see all sides of it first,” Hamlin told ESPN. “Whatever it might be, whatever issue might arise, I feel I’m more methodical in thinking about all sides before making a decision. So, I think it’s taught me patience more than anything.”
There is no bigger issue that Hamlin will work through, or test his patience, than the 2025 charter agreement. The 23XI Racing team that Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan did not find it to be a fair deal for the teams, so neither it nor Front Row Motorsports signed the agreement before the Sept. 6 deadline, and both jointly filed an antitrust lawsuit against the series last week.
The lawsuit not only covers the charter agreement financials but accuses NASCAR of unlawful monopolization. In suing NASCAR and CEO Jim France, the allegations are that the leadership of the sport has used anti-competitive practices to prevent fair competition. Hamlin, Jordan and 23XI say they are fighting for a fair market that will benefit those who participate in the sport — drivers, teams, sponsors and fans.
It has been two years of NASCAR and teams trying to negotiate a new deal, and the teams were adamant about needing more financial stability to survive. As evidenced by its lawsuit, 23XI says the new agreement is not enough return on its investment.
“It’s actually pretty simple in my opinion,” Hamlin said in a statement when the suit was filed. “When I look around, I see that the best and most competitive sports in the world understand it when teams thrive, fans benefit, and that everyone who invests in making the sport a success should share fairly in that success. With the right changes, we can certainly make that a reality in racing.”
Now that the lawsuit is public, Hamlin doesn’t view it as a distraction from his on-track aspirations. A day before competing at Talladega Superspeedway last Sunday, the first race since the lawsuit made headlines, Hamlin confidently stated that the Joe Gibbs Racing team he drives for would never say that he’s shown up unprepared or unfocused, and the appropriate parties will handle the litigation now that it’s no longer something taking place in the shadows.
Given how much goes into owning and operating a race team, never mind the dedication required to be a driver, there are times when Hamlin feels like the four years since 23XI’s founding have flown by. Other times, they feel exactly as long as the 1,481 days it has been since the team’s launch.
Hamlin has one of the most unique positions in the sport. Neither of the cars he fields in the Cup Series is the one he drives, creating a balancing act between his ownership obligations and aspirations, and the aspirations he has in Gibbs’ No. 11 Toyota.
“In the beginning, there were concerns from the outside, and maybe on the inside as well, of how will I balance the two, but it’s been pretty seamless,” Hamlin said. “I balance the time well. It does take a lot of my free time when I’m not doing driving things. That time is all focused on 23XI. But I’ve got such a big infrastructure there that I’m not really worried about it if I do go dark for a day or two.”
Both organizations have meetings on Mondays. Wednesdays are the busiest days for overlap, when Hamlin attends back-to-back-to-back meetings at 23XI’s glistening new facility, Airspeed, before heading straight to the Gibbs shop for sim work.
He says he believes that his double duty is proving to be a big advantage, allowing him to drive for a top organization and then transfer the knowledge he has learned there to the one he owns and is still growing. There’s also the driver playbook that Hamlin has assembled throughout his 20-year career, which he can pass to burgeoning 23XI talents Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace and help them avoid the mistakes he made in NASCAR.
“I want to see them succeed,” Hamlin said. “I truly believe I’ve got two chances at a championship [as a driver and as an owner], and either one is really going to make me happy this year.”
Gibbs has been the mentor Hamlin needed for this chapter of his life. Having watched how “Coach” has operated for almost two decades, Hamlin tries to incorporate many of Gibbs’ practices. It’s hard, he admits, to put into words everything that comes with being an owner.
“But nothing has really shocked me,” Hamlin said. “When [Gibbs] said to me at the very beginning, ‘What are you doing? You’ve got too much on your plate as it is,’ he was definitely right. I wouldn’t trade anything. It’s been really, really fun, and when you have results like we’ve had, those rewards make everything seem worth it.”
Denny Hamlin, second from left, and Michael Jordan, right, saw their 23XI team win the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship with Tyler Reddick, second from right. Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
The approaches of Gibbs and Hamlin differed when it came to the charter agreement, although the latter has another giant of the stick-and-ball sports world in his corner: Jordan. Not only business partners, Hamlin and Jordan are longtime friends, and the six-time NBA champion is a lifelong fan of racing, well familiar with how the business works — eliminating much need for hand-holding. Jordan, however, likes information and, like Hamlin, has an office at the race shop.
It’s an easy working dynamic between the two. Jordan is the guy who wants to see things on paper. What are the trends? Where are they going? What are they doing? It’s not uncommon for Hamlin to hear Jordan expressing that whatever decisions need to be made, they shouldn’t be influenced by his relationships.
“If anything, he’s more paranoid about getting too in-depth with the team,” Hamlin said. “But we try to tell him, it’s well worth it, and his involvement is a big part of why our employees love working for someone like him.
“You’d think he’d be very controlling, but he’s not. He really, really trusts me, and every move I want to make, he lets me do it. Even if he doesn’t think that it’s the right move. He says all the time, ‘I ride with you.’ It puts a lot of pressure on me because I don’t want to let him down, and that’s why I put in the work that I do because I know I’m representing a huge brand, a huge athlete and someone special in the world we live in. I want to live up to the winning mentality that he’s had his whole life.”
The seven wins 23XI has earned in four seasons are satisfying, but Hamlin wants more. And since the team, as he says, isn’t going anywhere, there’s plenty of time to become as dominant as NASCAR’s most iconic outfits.
“I’m happy because I have so much pride and I’m so competitive,” Hamlin said. “If this would have been a failure, it would have been pretty hard on me because of that, and I want to see things done the right way and I feel like if I do them the right way, I’ll have success. So, if this had not been a successful venture, it would have been tough on me and probably would have had a little burden on my driving, truthfully. But I think it’s given me more confidence in both.”
Source: espn.com