"Things are not going well": Denny Hamlin furthers Tony Stewart's recent comments on NASCAR exit
Denny Hamlin recently reacted to Tony Stewart's comments on closing down SHR at the end of this season. The veteran NASCAR driver and owner announced earlier this year that SHR, which he co-owns with Gene Haas, would be closing shop at the end of 2024.
In a conversation with Kevin Harvick, the 3x Cup champion mentioned that the present time in NASCAR is the one where things are 'drastically changing.' Stewart mentioned the ongoing lawsuit between 23XI Racing/ Front Row Motorsports and the governing body over charters. Tony Stewart revealed that it is not a direction he wants to be a part of and that there are things he doesn't like about NASCAR today.
Addressing Stewart's comments recently on Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin claimed that it is something that is 'the head of the snake' of the 23XI-NASCAR lawsuit.
"It is that things are not going well and need to be changed. Tony really just kind of talked about how difficult it is in the sport nowadays and it's certainly not how it used to be. Some of those comments to give context were about sponsorship where there were so many Fortune 500 companies that they couldn’t find a car to get on. There were so many opportunities back then and we’re talking 10-15 years ago before the other sports started putting patches on their uniforms and helmets and things like that. If you have some sponsorship media dollars you want to spend in your company, there’s so many different avenues you can use it for now," Hamlin described.
Denny Hamlin further elaborates on the changing sponsor landscape in NASCAR today
Further sharing his thoughts on the subject, Denny Hamlin claimed that back in the day, things like Facebook ads and Instagram weren't a thing. Hamlin pointed out that NASCAR still has a core fanbase that supports the sponsors who participate in the sport.
But Hamlin came back to the bigger point from Stewart's comments, claiming that once a team loses sponsors, things begin to go downhill. Hamlin further extended his point by taking up his own example as he said:
"You see many sponsors on my racecars when you used to see one. It’s just very difficult in this landscape and why it’s so critical for the race teams to be able to financially make it without tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship. But that’s becoming harder and harder, especially when we compete with each other for that sponsorship, and we have to compete against the sanctioning body."
Denny Hamlin claimed that oftentimes, it is NASCAR who are the first ones to call up a potential sponsor and take that away from a team.
This, as per the JGR veteran, is what makes it 'very hard to sustain' in the sport, which is why many owners chose to leave such as Tony Stewart.