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Oct 31, 2025; Avondale, Arizona, USA; NASCAR Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin (11) during practice for the NASCAR Championship race at Phoenix Raceway. | Credits- Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Denny Hamlin crossed another mark with his 61st Cup Series win in the fifth race of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last Sunday, moving past Kevin Harvick on the career wins list.
As a result, he joined the likes of Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon as drivers who have found victory lane continuously across 20 seasons. In NASCAR, where many hang up their helmets around 45, give or take a year, Hamlin is still keeping the wheels turning. While Hamlin has played down his talent in the past, saying he is just lucky to be on that list and that he places others on a higher rung, the numbers reveal a more explicit picture.
He stands among the few, alongside Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Richard Petty, and Mark Martin, to win at least five races after making 700 Cup starts. More than that, Hamlin holds the best win rate beyond that mark, taking the checkered flag first in roughly one out of every five races, a return that puts him in rare air. After the win, Hamlin’s radio crackled, “Old dog can still hunt.
” When pressed, he said the result meant more at this stage (when he is 45), having seen how the story often plays out for those he idolizes. “I saw at the end of their career, when they got my age, that the performance changed, for whatever reason. ” “I think Kevin Harvick is kind of the one that sticks out, that he was still doing it at this level at this age.
I don’t know when he stopped winning. Maybe 46-ish, 47-ish. I’m not really sure.