One storyline dominated fans’ minds this week. The race in Kansas looked like it was in Toyota’s hands, with Denny Hamlin sweeping both stages and leading a race-high 159 laps. In the closing laps, Bubba Wallace held the lead and had a sure-fire shot at victory. However, a tangle with Hamlin did not let that happen, and Chase Elliott grabbed the win instead. But wait, that is not all to the story, as Hamlin’s day was longer than outwardly visible.

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran is on a mission – to tie Kevin Harvick’s 60-race winning streak and to clinch an elusive championship. So Denny Hamlin’s drive is equally unstoppable. What is more, glimmers of this passion for NASCAR were visible in a grueling driving experience, which NASCAR officials recently broached.

Denny Hamlin was all alone

Well, the JGR veteran has a penchant for navigating problems as a loner. Denny Hamlin’s comfort with his black hat reputation in the sport provides ample evidence of that. Yet at Kansas Speedway, Hamlin had to steer through his troubles alone, whether he liked it or not. After dominating most of the race, he lost power steering on Lap 214. He had to muscle out a runner-up finish with 10-20% power steering remaining over the final 50 laps. It not only added more postseason peril but also complicated his attack in the waning laps. Yet NASCAR could not do anything, as Amanda Ellis, Senior Director of Racing Communications, admitted in a ‘Hauler Talk’ episode.

Denny Hamlin reported the issue to the No. 11 JGR team, and Ellis emphasized that it is all in the pit crew’s hands. She clarified NASCAR’s stance in such a tough situation: “During the race, if this occurs, most of the managing of that goes through the team. We don’t have a sensor on any of the power steering that we would monitor other than the radio communication that you mentioned. Additionally, after the race…if there’s something that we need further information on, we’ll connect with the team to kind of learn what that could be.”

Upon being asked if a pit stop is necessary to relieve the driver’s distress, Amanda Ellis said, “No. Not anything that I can think of, unless there are concerns from a safety issue.” She added that Denny Hamlin had to deal with most of the problem himself, as even his team was helpless. She continued, “It requires the car to be more manual; the driver has a lot more on them…The 11 team, at one point the crew chief or the spotter came on the radio and said that there’s nothing we can do to help you right now. It’s not fixable…Considering where Denny was running at the time, I’m sure they were hoping to motivate him to stay in that position versus falling back…’Cause if you came down pit road, you were gonna put yourself back in traffic.”

“He was able to still hang on to it after his arms were mushed,” Chris Gayle saluted Denny Hamlin at the end of the race. Indeed, the No. 11 crew chief’s words are true as Hamlin held on to finish in the runner-up spot even after his trouble with Bubba Wallace.

And the second misadventure, which was the hot topic, elicited a strong reaction from Denny Hamlin.

Scrutinizing the public eye

As we all know, Denny Hamlin already has a well-established group of detractors. His past brush-ups with more popular racers like Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson had lent him this ‘villain’ status. Hence, many people jumped to criticize Hamlin for running down Bubba Wallace in Kansas. Considering that the latter drives for the team Hamlin co-owns, many thought it was poor judgment. Yet Denny Hamlin pointed out the reverse situation, where he lets Wallace retain the race lead and win.

And the consequences of that would have been far worse. Fans may have accused Denny Hamlin of not giving it 100% and manipulating the race outcome so that Wallace could advance to the round of 8. “Could you imagine the outrage if I had just backed off and let him have it?” Hamlin asked on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “Holy ****. People would lose their minds. But instead, I think Bubba said it very accurately: we were going for the win. Both guys were going for the win.”

Granted, Wallace openly expressed his anger, calling his boss a ‘f—— douche’ and flipping him the bird. However, even the 23XI Racing driver eventually took it in stride. He said, “No matter who you are, what it is — we race hard…You know, I was excited to race Denny for the win, and we ended up fifth and gave the 9 (Elliott) a win. So that’s what’s frustrating the most. We couldn’t get Toyota to Victory Lane.”

Despite the swathe of problems in Kansas, Denny Hamlin powered through. Let’s wait and watch where his championship run goes in the future races.