Denny Hamlin declares 'old school NASCAR is back'

During the offseason, NASCAR made some major changes to the sport, and it sounds like Denny Hamlin is a fan.

The 45-year-old has never been one to mince his words or be shy about sharing his opinion on the current state of NASCAR, and that included criticism of the playoff system in recent years.

Well, for 2026, the playoffs have been scrapped, The Chase is back, and those are not the only fan and driver-friendly moves that the sport has made for this campaign.

At short tracks and road courses, Cup Series cars have also been given a bump in horsepower (750hp), with the early results having been positive, and Goodyear also continues to develop and bring tire compounds with more falloff, subsequently improving the racing in the next-gen era.

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Denny Hamlin on NASCAR 2026

Discussing all of the above following last weekend's race at Phoenix, where he registered his first top-five finish of the season, Hamlin offered an overwhelmingly positive verdict on this week's episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

“It’s good," Hamlin stated, before adding, “Old school NASCAR is back.

“We’ve got long points standings here, we got a little more horsepower this weekend [at Phoenix], we've got tires that are wearing out.

“We’re making progress.”

Hamlin predicts big points movement

Hamlin appears to be particularly enjoying the sport's new championship format, and the Joe Gibbs Racing star is predicting plenty of movement in the points standings in the coming weeks now that the unpredictable superspeedway races are out of the way for the time being.

“I definitely am,” Hamlin explained when asked if he was regularly checking the points standings under The Chase format. “I mean, on the ride home, I'm looking at the points standings, so I love it.

“I mean, truthfully, the points standings are not different this year than they were last year, other than for the guys that win. The difference is, there’s no two sets of points standings, ‘So where are you on playoff points?’

“All we're looking at now is regular season, so we see how tight the field is, and it will continue to be tight until the next two to three weeks, when tracks like Phoenix, what it does is allow people to really stack up big points.

“On superspeedways, the stage points are spread out all over the place because of cars moving back and forth, and it's hard to get stage points and win races. Same with road courses.

Hamlin added: “These tracks coming up, you're going to see people winning stages and winning races, and so there's going to be big jumps in points.”