LAS VEGAS — Emotions were heavy after a decision to take four tires in NASCAR’s championship-deciding finale in the Arizona desert backfired and cost Denny Hamlin the Cup Series title that has eluded him his entire career.
Hamlin had dominated the season finale in November until a late caution forced him to pit road and crew chief Chris Gayle had to make a choice. Gayle called for four tires, Kyle Larson took two tires to beat Hamlin out of the pits.
Hamlin didn’t have enough time to catch Larson over two laps and Larson won his second Cup Series title as Hamlin was left empty-handed once again.
It was a gutting defeat that might have broken others.
Not the No. 11 team.
Hamlin and Gayle spent most of the offseason apart with little communication between the two, Hamlin said, because Hamlin found no need to speak to Gayle about the call.
In the fifth race of the new season, the duo showed it has recovered from the Phoenix defeat with a Sunday victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. To this day, Hamlin said he’s never spoken to Gayle about the four-tire call at Phoenix.
“If I would have thought that it was the absolute wrong call, I would have questioned it. I would have said, ‘Are you sure?’ I would have said, ‘I think track position means the most,’” Hamlin said. “There are ifs and butts. You just can’t live in that world. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it because you can’t change it.”
Hamlin’s offseason heartbreak has been documented. After losing the title that he wanted to win because his father was terminally ill at the time, Hamlin returned home heartbroken.
He didn’t get much time to recover before he was in court as co-owner of 23XI Racing as part of the winning team in a federal lawsuit against NASCAR last December. Weeks later, his father was killed in a fire that destroyed the home Hamlin purchased to thank his parents for getting him into NASCAR.
Gayle, who as crew chief doesn’t have the level of public-facing responsibilities as Hamlin, said he needed three days after Phoenix “of kicking yourself hard” and “rethinking everything I could have ever done” before he was able to put it away.
“That was probably the most dejected I’ve been in my life. What are you going to do about it?” said Gayle. “You get over it. I could let it bother me forever. That’s not going to happen. I can move on, learn from it.”
His rapid recovery drew praise from team owner Joe Gibbs, who coached Washington’s football team to three Super Bowl victories. Like Hamlin, Gibbs said he didn’t need to speak to Gayle about the defeat in the desert.
“He’s mentally and physically tough. Stays after it. I think he’s really talented,” Gibbs said. “When I did talk to him, I said, ‘Look, I’ve been in that situation. I’ve made calls. Sometimes they’re really tough.’
“I think that is why we love what we do, though, ’cause it’s really hard. It’s the best people in the world doing it. I think that’s why people like to watch it. You can have some very tough days and tough decisions, for sure.”
Gayle said he knew how much Hamlin was going through last offseason and it weighed on his own emotions.
“I felt horrible because Denny is going through all the things he’s going through,” Gayle said. “I could have delivered that championship to him. I wasn’t able to do it. Now he has to go through all this. In hindsight seeing the bigger picture, putting it all on myself. I could have made some decisions different.”
Despite all of it, Gayle didn’t worry about the driver who show up to go to the Daytona 500 in February. Hamlin wasn’t sure if he still found enough joy in racing after Phoenix to get back in the car, but honored his commitment to Joe Gibbs Racing.
“He said he would get there. I could tell he wasn’t locked in,” said Gayle, who said he has focused with Hamlin on “’OK, it didn’t got way we wanted. How do we rewrite what’s coming in the future?’ There’s a lot of things that happened in the past, you don’t want to drag them forward, create more problems for yourself.”
It took five races into his 21st season in the Cup Series for Hamlin to show he’s recovered. The Las Vegas victory was the 61st of his career — 10th in NASCAR history — and has Hamlin ready to roll next weekend into Darlington Raceway, the South Carolina track where he won last year.
He’s going with Gayle, who Hamlin believes can get him another chance at a championship this year.
“We’re going to win and lose together. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Chris Gayle for these seven wins over the course of these 40 races or so,” Hamlin said. “He’s just a great guy. So underrated in what he does. I’m glad he’s getting the wins now that he deserves.”
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