After Tragedy, Denny Hamlin Carrying Late Father’s Memory to the Track

Denny Hamlin had an unimaginable NASCAR offseason, and he enters the 2026 Cup Series season — starting with Sunday’s Daytona 500 — with a heavy heart. After he lost the 2025 Cup championship late in the season finale and following his 23XI Racing team’s legal settlement against NASCAR, a true tragedy hit him and his family. In December, his father, Dennis Hamlin, died at 75 years old in a house fire, which also seriously injured his mother. He recently explained to FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass how supportive NASCAR fans have been throughout the offseason. “2025 was a very trying year,” Hamlin told FOX Sports’ Tom Rinaldi in a pre-race feature on “NASCAR RaceDay.” “How am I going to respond to this? And do I respond by going in a corner and shriveling up, or do I just come out and say, ‘I’m tougher because of this’?” Hamlin spoke in-depth about the sacrifices his family made to help him get into racing when he was a child dreaming of winning the Daytona 500. He’s now a three-time Daytona 500 champion (2016, 2019, 2020), but hasn’t forgotten how his parents mortgaged their house multiple times to get him there. “My dad’s role, essentially, was earning a really hard living to make sure he could support his son’s dream,” Hamlin said. “My parents opened up every credit card that came in the mail.” Hamlin recalled how he first learned about the tragic fire at his parents’ house and how his mom brought his dad from the bedroom to the front yard in an effort to escape. “I was just driving so fast to try to get there, and they said they had already been taken to a hospital,” Hamlin recalled. “What made it real for me was seeing my dad. When I saw him laying there after he had passed, I knew that it was real in that moment, and obviously, I saw how burned he was. At that time, I felt for my mom. She saw it all first hand.” While Hamlin’s parents were often on his mind when he was behind the wheel, he’s now racing to honor his father too, with his mother, Mary Lou Hamlin, in attendance at the 2026 Daytona 500. [FULL RACE COVERAGE: Daytona 500 Live Updates, Leaderboard]