As long-time readers of Track Talk have probably suspected, I’ve never been the biggest fan of Joe Gibbs Racing, for reasons I won’t get into here. That being said, this past week, they did a couple of things that are deserving of a tip of the hat.
On Sunday, Denny Hamlin won the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. It was Hamlin’s third win of the 2026 campaign and It was Hamlin’s third win of the 2026 campaign and his 63rd career Cup win, an achievement that ties him with the late Kyle Busch for ninth on the all-time Cup wins list.
In celebrating the win, Hamlin threw back to Jeff Gordon’s April 2007 win at Phoenix. Gordon’s win was the 76th of his career which tied him with Dale Earnhardt. Gordon took a Polish victory lap (made famous by Alan Kulwicki) carrying a Dale Earnhardt flag.
In celebrating his win at Michigan, Hamlin also produced a flag to honour Busch. While Hamlin might have been in his right to wave one of the flags produced by Joe Gibbs Racing to market Kyle Busch during his tenure driving the #18 Toyota, he decided to take the tribute to the next level. Working with Richard Childress Racing, Hamlin produced a flag that included the stylized #8 that was Busch’s final Cup car number and a black #1, paying tribute to his long-time car number, 18.
In a world that seems fit to divide itself into silos, each group doing more to rage about how anyone outside their silo is the enemy than to find common ground, Denny Hamlin and, by extension, Joe Gibbs Racing, put aside any on-track rivalry they might have had with RCR and produced a fitting tribute to their fallen teammate and friend, Kyle Busch.
Good on them.
Hamlin also made news after the race over comments he made about his own future in NASCAR. The Coles Notes is that it appears he intends to “step away from full-time Cup Series racing” (because no one ever uses the term “retire”) after the 2027 season. In talking with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., he revealed that JGR has pegged Brent Crews to replace him.
I have to be honest, I was a little surprised that Crews was the name that came up. His name wasn’t totally unfamiliar to me, mostly from his time in the ARCA series where he won six of 17 races. Turns out, the 18-year-old has found a lot of success in the Trans-Am Series and in moving up to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series, he has continued to impress. Eight Top 10s in a dozen races so far this year in the O’Reilly Series and four Top 10s in 11 races over the last two years in the Truck Series.
I have long been a proponent of NASCAR teams, no matter how big or small, to be thinking about the future. While it is only natural to utilize the bulk of the resources focusing on the current Cup roster, every team looking for long-term success must also have a secession plan in place for the day when those Cup stars step away from full-time competition. While a team like Joe Gibbs Racing may have a set date for when that change must occur, life doesn’t always go to plan. Tragically, Richard Childress Racing found out that just a few weeks ago. By utilizing the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series to develop young drivers, they had the ability to put Austin Hill behind the wheel of the rebranded #33 Chevrolet.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the Craftsman Truck Series and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series shouldn’t be used by Cup Series regulars as an opportunity to get more practice for Sundays, or just to have fun without having to worry about points or Chase standings. The priority should be preparing the next generation of drivers for the inevitable changing of the guard.
I’ve certainly been critical about how proactive JGR has been in preparing for that changing of the guard. As it turns out, they were fooling us the whole time. There was no giant spotlight being shone on Crews as the next JGR Cup driver they way it was with Ty Gibbs. Instead, they saw to his development under the radar. With the rest of 2026 and all of 2027 to gain more experience in the two developmental series, the opportunity to race with JGR equipment, and any mentorship that a veteran the calibre of Denny Hamlin can give him in the meantime, the future looks very bright for Brent Crews.
If you had asked me a month ago who Joe Gibbs Racing might have tabbed to replace Denny Hamlin when he “steps away from full-time Cup Series racing” or, I would have guessed, left JGR to go into semi-retirement mode with 23XI Racing, Brent Crews definitely would not have been on my radar. Corey Heim, William Sawalich, Taylor Gray, even Giovanni Ruggiero would have been my guesses.
But no matter how big a name Crews is right now, having him in the wings for Denny’s departure is a smart move for JGR. At 18 years old and with the success he’s shown in other forms of motorsports, and the developmental series of NASCAR, the future is very bright for Brent Crews. This is a move I have to applaud because it is helping to shape the future certainly of Joe Gibbs Racing in particular but NASCAR in general.
johnmilner.ca 