Unless you followed late model racing in Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic 20 years ago, you probably had never heard of Denny Hamlin.
It would have also been a surprise how, near the end of the 2005 NASCAR season, Joe Gibbs Racing elevated Hamlin to its No. 11 Cup Series ride as a full-time driver.
Yet, just one year later, everyone in NASCAR knew his name. In one of the most impressive rookie seasons ever, Hamlin scored two wins, 20 top 10s and an average finish of 12.5. He also captured Rookie of the Year honors over Martin Truex Jr., who had won the last two titles in the second-tier division and was expected to be the season’s splashiest rookie.
Instead, it was Hamlin who emerged as the biggest future star.
Fast forward to the present, when Hamlin and Truex are now Cup Series veterans and teammates at JGR, despite the completely opposite career paths that they have taken.
Hamlin has driven the No. 11 ever since his introduction to the Cup Series.
He has never raced with another number or for another team in 667 starts and he and Gibbs are by far the longest active driver/team pairing in the Cup Series. Over the years, Hamlin has won 54 races — including three Daytona 500s — and has shown the capability to win on just about every type of track. However, a Cup Series championship continues to elude him.
Truex, meanwhile, did not have Hamlin’s instant success at the Cup Series level, or a long-term relationship with any team. He got his first win in 2007 with a rapidly declining Dale Earnhardt Inc., but win No. 2 did not come until 2013 with Michael Waltrip Racing. Truex and MWR looked like a pairing on the rise at the time, but in a shocking turn of events, the team lost Truex’s primary sponsor amid the fallout of a race manipulation scandal, forcing Truex and MWR to part ways. At the time, it looked like he was never going to reach his full potential.
Yet Truex’s career had more surprises in store. After some initial struggles, he took the single-car Furniture Row Racing team from scrappy underdog to certified powerhouse, winning eight races and the Cup Series championship in 2017. Truex and FRR were poised to be contenders for years, but the departure of a key sponsor in 2018 ultimately led the organization to close up shop at the end of the season. Truex then jumped to JGR, where he has come close to winning more championships in seasons like 2019 and 2021. His current win total stands at 34.
Now,…
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