Hamlin chasing two more career mileposts at Bristol

Denny Hamlin has the opportunity to accomplish a first Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway while adding another notch to his history with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hamlin enters the Food City 500 on a two-week winning streak. A third consecutive victory would be a first-time feat for him in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Furthermore, the next victory would be his 57th in the series. And that would make Hamlin the winningest driver in the history of Joe Gibbs Racing.

The 44-year-old has claimed nearly every major event in the NASCAR Cup Series. A victory in the Brickyard 400 and a Cup Series championship remain the two noticeable absences. Even still, Hamlin values the opportunity to add new and different accomplishments to his resume — but with a sense of keeping himself focusing on one thing at a time.

“I try not to psych myself out too much about it because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those types of situations, and then you end up making silly mistakes,” Hamlin said Saturday. “I just try to be as even-keeled as I can. It’s a new week. It’s another great opportunity to go win a race. If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and certainly a very proud moment in my career, but it is not something that we set out to do each and every week.

“We don’t go into the season saying, all right, I want to win, at some point, three in a row this year. That is such a hard thing to do because all of the stars have to align perfectly, as we saw last week. They did align perfectly for us (at Darlington). It would be fantastic; some of the greats of our sport have done it, and I haven’t, and it just tells you how difficult it is.”

The victories at Martinsville Speedway (March 30) and Darlington Raceway (April 6) made it the first time Hamlin went back-to-back since 2015. Hamlin did so that year at Bristol and Atlanta.

Joe Gibbs Racing won three consecutive races earlier this season with Christopher Bell. No team has won three straight races in the same year with two different drivers.

Hamlin tied Kyle Busch with 56 victories driving a Gibbs car last weekend. The next victory makes Hamlin the winningest driver for the organization, which has field entries for the likes of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart, also former champions like Busch, as well as Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards, and Joey Logano.

The breakdown of wins by driver:

1. Kyle Busch & Denny Hamlin: 56

2. Tony Stewart: 33

3. Bobby Labonte: 21

4. Matt Kenseth: 15

5. Martin Truex Jr.: 15

6. Christopher Bell: 12

7. Carl Edwards: 5

8. Dale Jarrett: 2

9. Joey Logano: 2

10. Erik Jones: 2

“It certainly is special,” Hamlin said of the opportunity to be the all-time wins leader for Gibbs. “It’s such a historic organization with the championship drivers and whatnot. I’ve been there longer than anyone else so that increases my odds. There’s just been a lot of greats that have run through there, so it’s certainly a title I would like to have.”

Hamlin is the defending race winner at Bristol.