Denny Hamlin gave his thoughts and predictions for the upcoming in-season tournament just days after NASCAR announced it. The event in question was announced a few days ago and is planned to begin in 2025, with participating drivers competing for a million dollars.
Speaking about this tournament, Hamlin stated that it is full of benefits for everyone concerned. According to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, the in-season tournament has the ability to draw more attention to NASCAR, including from casual fans. Denny Hamlin spoke with Frontstretch on Friday and said,
“Certainly there’s some people from the outside that, hopefully will get some interest because they get to fill our bracket and certainly there’ll be some contest out there that’s going to reward them for having the best bracket. It’s going to get hopefully some casual fans into this.” [at 8:40]
Denny Hamlin claimed that the in-season tournament has several beneficial aspects to it, and there’s nothing he can think of that he could term as a negative to go along with it.
“You’re going to have some storylines and we know that this thing is going to come down to someone at the very end of the race battling for what we think is an irrelevant position but it will move someone on. So I think that’s all positives,” he said [at 8:24].
Denny Hamlin touches on the pride aspect of the in-season tournament
During the same interaction, a journalist told Denny Hamlin how Brad Keselowski joked about fans getting the money from the tournament, only to find out that the money would go to the team. Because of this, Keselowski suggested that there should be a restructuring of the driver deals based on how much money they’ll get out of that.
Keeping all that in context, the journalist asked Hamlin on his opinion of how drivers will react to it, and whether he considered it a big deal or not.
“It’s always a big deal. That’s what we’re racing this weekend for right? It’s equivalent in sports terms, it’s not a huge deal but it’s more of a pride thing,” Hamlin said [at 9:39].
He claimed that while the money will mean more to some drivers than others, there is also the aspect of “pride” that’ll accompany it for all.This led to the journalist asking Hamlin what it would mean to him, to which the #11 driver replied it was another contest for him and another “race to win.”
“To me, I’m ultra competitive. I’m going go out there and win it,” he exclaimed [at 10:05].
With that said, Denny Hamlin added that it’ll be interesting to see and follow as he predicted an increase in the ratings.
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