1. Is the Denny Hamlin title talk overblown?
Look up and down the list of acclaimed NASCAR drivers and you’ll find plenty of drivers to have won numerous races. Beyond that, there are the seven-time champions like Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson and Richard Petty, as well as multi-time champions such as Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.
But there’s also another group: drivers who have won lots of races but not a championship. As many races as the likes of Ricky Rudd, Mark Martin, Carl Edwards and Harry Gant have won, a series title eluded each of them, sometimes in heartbreaking fashion.
Until he wins a title, Denny Hamlin is in that category.
And that’s not a failure.
For those keeping score at home, Hamlin has 54 wins in NASCAR’s top division. That includes multiple Daytona 500 and Southern 500 wins and a Coca-Cola 600 victory.
That does not make his career any less impressive, especially with a title format that rewards being just good enough to get to the postseason and catching fire over 10 races to end the season.
Let’s imagine, for a moment, if Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace had not been able to close out the title chase in 1988 and 1989. Would either of them be branded as a lesser driver? Absolutely not.
Make no mistake about it. Hamlin is as driven as ever to win a championship. Eventually, the law of averages will catch up and he will win a title.
But even if that never happens, it should not lessen what he has and continues to accomplish behind the wheel.
2. Is Chris Buescher declaring war on the playoff system?
Chris Buescher was good enough this year to be in the playoffs. But luck in the form of two unexpected winners, plus a matter of milliseconds at Kansas Speedway, robbed the No. 17 team of that distinction.
So what has the No. 17 team done in the face of that playoff disappointment?
Declared war on the system.
Don’t think for a second that it has not caused Buescher’s team to stew in the corner with resentment. That showed with Sunday’s (Sept. 15) charge past Shane van Gisbergen for the win at Watkins Glen International.
It’s a firm message that Buescher believes he and his team were playoff-worthy and that a salvo is being fired to remind everyone of that fact.
That point may not be done being made, by the way. Among the upcoming tracks in the playoffs? Bristol Motor Speedway, where he won in 2022, and Kansas Speedway, where he was an eyelash from winning earlier this year.
Buescher played the role of spoiler last weekend. He may not be finished while at the same time, posing the question: does the postseason format really reward the best 16 drivers?
3. Bringing old Bristol back starts with drivers.
Few storms in racing have been as perfect as the squall that built up to a storm as the annual night race at Bristol in the 1990s and toward the 2000s.
All of the elements were there for something special. You had drivers who came up in the old days like Wallace and Earnhardt. The eventual grandstand expansion made the place feel like the Colosseum. The racing grooves encouraged the trading of paint, all but forcing drivers to force the issue and shove someone in front of them out of the way. Was there debate over how excessive that got at times? Sure. And that’s why at the peak of the Bristol night race, fans would buy March race tickets just to get night-race seats.
Over time, the Bristol of old went away. Part of that was self-inflicted as a 2007 repave ended up taking away the one-groove surface. Two- and three-wide racing is exciting for fans at intermediate tracks. At a short track? Not exactly.
Get in a conversation with any fan around this weekend, and they’ll clamor for the old Bristol. Blaming Speedway Motorsports execs for the current state of Bristol is an easy cop out. Rather, the path to Bristol being more exciting lies not on the racing surface, but inside the helmets within the racecars.
Everyone talks of the ’90s at Bristol like days of yore. Do you know why you had drivers doing whatever it took to win, even if it’d mean ending up in the fence? It’s because many of them grew up having to do the same thing to survive. The Earnhardts, Wallaces and Labontes didn’t grow up being able to walk back to a glitzy pull-behind rig with flat-screen TVs after a bad night at a local short track. Instead, they trudged home, perhaps wondering how they’d pay the tire bill.
That mentality, even years later, still came out to play at Bristol. Drivers of that era were used to racing desperately.
And until drivers today find a way to do the same, the Bristol of the past will remain as such.
4. Competing TV timeslots benefits no one.
If you like all forms of racing, Sunday was either a day to wear out the previous channel button or set up two TVs next to one another. The reason? Two TV networks at loggerheads and going directly head-to-head for the Cup broadcast and the NTT IndyCar Series season finale with a start time in the same TV window of around 3 p.m.
If you only watch NASCAR, that probably did not impact you, but there’s a good chance many fans of both had quite the dilemma on Sunday.
Understandably, NBC’s IndyCar coverage was boxed in. As NASCAR has shown, a midday Nashville start is cruel and unusual punishment for fans, and NBC also could not go against Sunday Night Football. Ditto for the NASCAR side, where a lack of lights at Watkins Glen prevented a later time window.
Regardless, Sunday did neither side any favor. One of NASCAR’s postseason races had to share the direct spotlight with IndyCar crowning a champion.
The easy solution going forward with FOX taking on the IndyCar broadcast would be for the season finale to finish under the lights. The problem? Next year’s season finale would run up against NASCAR’s Southern 500, although a 3 p.m. IndyCar start would not clash quite as bad time-wise with a late-afternoon NASCAR start.
If FOX and NBC are truly partners, this is one space upon which that can be improved.
5. Is Corey LaJoie’s stock on the rise?
One of the easiest targets late in a racing season is that of a lame-duck driver. That’s especially true when it’s known that they are being replaced by the time NASCAR rolls onto the high banks of coastal Florida in February.
But it’s also a chance for said driver to go for broke with nothing to lose and finish strong and prove themselves in an open audition for a new place to showcase their talents for the next season.
That’s where Corey LaJoie comes into play. If Spire Motorsports reaches the next step in its growth, it won’t be with LaJoie driving one of its cars. LaJoie, as you may recall, stepped out of the No. 7 for a race in June 2023 in place of Chase Elliott at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. He finished 21st that day, right around his average finish for the year of 20.8.
Earlier this year, any chance of LaJoie being part of Spire Motorsports was made clear with the announcement that he and the team will part ways after 2024.
When a driver is being ushered out of a ride, even if it’s a slow nudging, a perception can grow that said driver is damaged goods.
LaJoie is showing that he can still make the most of an opportunity. One of the knocks on the driver has been that he needs the wild-card format of restrictor-plate racing to run well. The last few weeks have thrown that theory to the wayside. His finish of ninth at Darlington Raceway and eighth at Watkins Glen show that even when counted out, LaJoie is still a driver capable of maximizing a chance.
If LaJoie gets a better opportunity than expected for next year, this month may be the reason why.
Brad joined Frontstretch.com in 2020 and contributes to the site's 5 Points To Ponder column and other roles as needed. A graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, he has covered sports in some capacity for more than 20 years with coverage including local high school sports, college athletics and minor league hockey. Brad has received multiple awards for his work from the Georgia Press Association.