Denny Hamlin clears the air on NASCAR's big victory over 23XI Racing in charter feud saga

Denny Hamlin has given some perspective on the latest update in 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports' case against NASCAR. The two teams, one of them co-owned by Hamlin, have been involved in a legal battle against the governing body over charter disputes.

Recently, a court in Richmond, Virginia overturned the injunction granted to the two teams which allowed them to keep their charters and take part in the 2025 season. With the injunction being revoked, there could be a possibility of the two teams being forced to race as open teams without charters in this season itself.

However, Denny Hamlin claimed on Actions Detrimental, that the recent revoking of the injunction has nothing to do with the lawsuit itself. The co-owner of 23XI Racing said:

"This is just part of the certain little battles that happened throughout the litigation. It does not have anything to do with the actual lawsuit itself. This was just essentially, we asked the judge to give us an injunction to allow us to race chartered as we go through this. He gave us the injunction based off of the facts and then we had NASCAR appealed it took it to the appeals panel and they overruled that initial judge." [50:10]

Hamlin claimed now the two teams are 'checking out' their options. But he emphasized that they'd be racing in full this year 'no matter what', remaining hopeful of getting a big win in December.

Denny Hamlin hopes NASCAR's newest OEM goes all the way to the top of the series hierarchy

Speaking about RAM's entry into NASCAR through Truck Series, Denny Hamlin said he was relieved there was finally a new OEM. The veteran driver recalled how NASCAR had been talking about a new OEM for the last decade without it actually happening.

Further, Hamlin shared his predictions and expectations for the new manufacturer's future journey in the sport. He said:

"Hopefully, Dodge has a great experience and then thinks about their participation in the Cup Series. I think that's probably an ultimate goal of everyone's but I don't know how strong their car market is, what are their goals. I know that bringing back the prestige of the the Dodge RAM is probably high on their list. So I thought, great to have them back in NASCAR and hopefully they have a good enough experience where they see the investment is worth it and then they step up and come back to the Cup Series." [49:00]

Denny Hamlin added that for a manufacturer, the Truck Series is the 'best and easiest' point of entry. He claimed it is because the Truck teams don't have to build their own engines and instead, run the same engines with different bodies on the vehicles.

On the side of Cup, Hamlin mentioned teams having to develop their own engines, among other things, which makes it difficult from a cost perspective for new manufacturers.