Denny Hamlin's rollercoaster
offseason: Lawsuit win, father's death, and a return to racing
[February 04, 2026]
By JENNA FRYER
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — There's no telling what version of Denny
Hamlin will race this upcoming NASCAR season, which unofficially
begins Wednesday night with The Clash, an exhibition race held at
grassroots Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina.
Like most of the NASCAR community, Hamlin has had a rollercoaster of
an offseason. His began in the November season finale when an
elusive Cup Series championship was ripped from his fingers three
laps away from the title he's never been able to win.
Then came the December federal antitrust trial in which Michael
Jordan-led 23XI Racing, a team in which Hamlin is co-owner, joined
with Front Row Motorsports to sue NASCAR. The bruising trial lasted
nine days before NASCAR settled, with monetary damages apparently
exceeding $300 million while teams were given the permanent charter
status they fought over for more than two years.
The euphoria of that victory was short-lived for Hamlin: his father,
Dennis, who mortgaged everything the Hamlin family owned to get his
son to NASCAR's top level, was killed in a late December house fire.
Dennis Hamlin had been terminally ill at the time of the fire and
his son had been desperately trying to win a Cup title while his
father was still alive.
The loss of the championship left Hamlin stunned. His father's
death, while expected, came in a far more traumatic manner, that
could have broken Hamlin. Few would have been surprised if he'd
walked away from driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in search of a bit of
mental peace.
Alas, he's forging ahead, at 45 the oldest full-time driver in the
Cup Series, and starts with the Clash to honor his commitments in
the No. 11 Toyota. Hamlin is a four-time winner of the exhibition
race, and his 2006 victory as a rookie at Daytona burst him onto the
Cup scene as a budding star.
He's now a future Hall of Famer with 60 career Cup victories who won
a series-high six races in 2025. When he lost the title because of a
late caution in November, he said after the race he couldn't even
think about getting back in a race car anytime soon.
“Golly, in this moment I never want to race a car ever again. I
mean, my fun meter is pegged," he said after losing the championship
to Kyle Larson.
As the calendar flipped to a new year, he's ready to get back to
work.
“I've considered all options; I made a promise to Joe and the Gibbs
family,” Hamlin said before The Clash.
The season officially opens Feb. 15 with the Daytona 500, a race
Hamlin has won three times. William Byron is the two-time defending
winner.
Lawsuit fallout
NASCAR spent more than two years fighting with teams over a new
charter agreement and when 23XI and Front Row didn't like the terms
on the renewal, they sued.
The lawsuit revealed deep animosity between many teams and NASCAR,
which was founded in 1948 and remains solely owned by the
Florida-based France family.
The court battle took its toll.
NASCAR at the start of the year parted ways with Steve Phelps, an
employee of more than two decades who last year was named the first
Commissioner of the sport. The separation came after texts revealed
in discovery showed inflammatory messaging from Phelps toward the
teams, even if he was fighting for them to receive a better charter
agreement. He ultimately fell in line with his bosses and NASCAR
does not go into 2026 better off without Phelps, who was the most
approachable executive in the company and walked a fine line of
being fair to the teams while answering to the France family.
Steve O'Donnell, another longtime NASCAR employee, was promoted to
president when Phelps became commissioner. How the sport is governed
in the wake of the lawsuit will be something to watch, with many
looking toward Ben Kennedy, the great-grandson of NASCAR's founder,
to step up as the fourth generation to run the family business.
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Denny Hamlin smiles prior to a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at
Charlotte Motor Speedway, Oct. 5, 2025, in Concord, N.C. (AP
Photo/Matt Kelley, File)
“Phelps is gone and you've got O'Donnell and you've
got Ben,” said Rick Hendrick, owner of the reigning Daytona 500
winning car as well as Larson's Cup Series championship team.
“Can Ben mature up quick enough to do all the things that need to be
done? Or does NASCAR need a partner or to get someone in there?”
The rising star
NASCAR this year welcomes 19-year-old Connor Zilisch to the top Cup
Series after he won 10 races in the Xfinity Series last season. He
will drive for Trackhouse Racing and heads into his first Daytona
500 as the most-hyped rising star in nearly two decades.
Zilisch is fresh off a runner-up performance in the Rolex 24 at
Daytona, where he drove in the top class for a team owned by NASCAR
chairman Jim France. He's won in nearly everything he's driven since
launching his career and is expected to take the series by storm.
Chase is back
NASCAR is reverting to a championship format that closely resembles
the 10-race version introduced 22 years ago.
The system will be a 10-race format consisting of the top 16 drivers
in the regular-season standings. There will be no driver
eliminations every three races, winning will be incentivized and its
name will return to “The Chase.” The driver with the most points at
the Nov. 8 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be the champion.
In the most recent version, regular-season victories guaranteed a
slot in the 10-race playoffs, a win in any of the first three
three-race rounds advanced a driver into the next round, while the
bottom three drivers at the end of each round were eliminated.
Finally, the winner was simply the highest-finishing driver among
four remaining title contenders in the season finale.
The 2026 system will reward the most consistent driver over the
entire season with a Cup title.
New venue
The 2026 schedule again shows NASCAR's willingness to explore change
as a new venue — on a Naval Base in Coronado, California — has been
added as a street race.
NASCAR won't return to the streets of Chicago for a fourth
consecutive year and instead will race at Chicagoland Speedway in
Joliet for the first time since 2019. Mexico City was also dropped
after one money-losing attempt last year for NASCAR.
The season finale has returned to Homestead-Miami Speedway, where it
was held from 2002 through 2019. NASCAR moved it to Phoenix in 2020
but now says it will rotate the finale among multiple tracks
starting this year with the return to Homestead.
It's a terrific track for Larson to go for a third Cup title — he
has two wins at Homestead and six top-five finishes in 12 career
starts.
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