Few drivers in NASCAR history can boast a resume as impressive as Denny Hamlin’s while still not having won a Cup Series championship. He has won 64 races across two decades, claimed victories in crown-jewel events, and has consistently been in championship contention. Yet, both the regular-season title and the Cup Series championship have remained elusive. Now, as he sits atop the standings with four races left in the regular season, NASCAR has confirmed another twist that adds fresh irony to his championship pursuit.
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“Regular season champion — there’s only one champion per season, and that’s the one who takes home the big trophy. So don’t need that anymore either,” NASCAR official Mike Forde said on the Hauler Talk podcast, confirming one of the biggest changes to the sport’s revamped championship format.
NASCAR received feedback from its playoff committee and competitors that terms like “playoffs” and “regular season champion” never truly fit stock car racing, Forde further stated on the podcast.
As “the Kid” Mark Martin pointed out earlier, race car drivers don’t “play.” That makes the word playoff feel out of place. And with NASCAR introducing more changes, it has decided there should be only one champion each season: the driver who wins the Cup Series championship at Homestead-Miami.
As a result, the driver who finishes atop the regular-season standings will no longer be recognized as a champion. Instead, the points leader after the opening 26 races will simply enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. For now, that appears to be Hamlin.
Hamlin knew this was happening. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who has spent nearly 20 years chasing his first Cup Series championship, recently joked about the change after learning the regular-season title was disappearing.
“They don’t want me to be a champion,” Hamlin quipped on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “The one time you win the regular season, they get rid of it.”
After years of narrowly missing both the regular-season crown and the overall championship, Hamlin now finds himself leading the standings in a season when NASCAR has decided the regular-season champion no longer officially exists.
Of course, nothing has been decided yet as far as the now-defunct Regular Season Championship is concerned. Hamlin currently leads the standings with 842 points, while Tyler Reddick is second with 774. The 23XI Racing driver remains within striking distance of the top spot, while Ryan Blaney, who won at Atlanta two weeks ago, is also still in contention with 755 points. So, the bragging rights remain up for grabs. And even though there’s no trophy for finishing atop the regular-season standings anymore, the position still carries strategic advantages.
Ultimately, though, Forde’s six-word message made NASCAR’s stance unmistakably clear. Whether Denny Hamlin finishes atop the standings or not, the sport now recognizes only one champion each season. For a driver whose career has long been defined by the pursuit of that ultimate prize, the mission remains unchanged: win the championship that has slipped through his fingers for two decades.