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Balancing between the ownership of one team and the role of a professional driver in another team is not easy. Denny Hamlin felt it best on his skin. The popular NASCAR driver knew that having dual roles is quite difficult, but his passion and love for NASCAR are stronger than anything.
The 44-year-old driver revealed that at the end of the 2023 season, he had problems when Ty Gibbs, his teammate, and Bubba Wallace, driver at 23XI Racing, were fighting for playoff positions. Denny admitted that they had a real conflict, but he knew that he had to act rationally in such situations.
"It's the first time we've ever had a true conflict. But I just want to make it very clear where my allegiance lies and that could obviously rub people up the wrong way. But it's the right thing to do if I'm to be a leader of the team that I own."- he said, as quoted by Bellingham Herald.
Bubba Wallace, the controversial driver, knew that Denny had found himself in a situation that few would want to be in.
"Now we know where Denny stands on that. It's a tough spot for him, being like, 'Hey, I'm not helping out my team. I'm helping my team'."-Bubba said.
The 44-year-old wanted to know if he could own a part of Joe Gibbs Racing, but the team's owner wasn't really interested in such an option.
"I said, 'Guys, I'm gonna ask y'all a very serious question: Is there any opportunity for me to own a piece of Joe Gibbs Racing? I'm very interested.' And at the time, Joe's getting up there in age and he's like, 'I don't think so.' "I was like, 'I just wanna know for sure because I think I'm gonna make a move if there's no place for me to have ownership here at JGR."
Aware that he could not play such a role, Denny decided to dedicate himself to 23XI Racing and figure out what he had to do to make this team better.
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