{"id":49508,"date":"2025-07-08T19:45:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49508\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T19:45:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:45:19","slug":"denny-hamlin-explains-how-important-chicago-is-to-23xi-as-partner-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49508\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin explains how important Chicago is to 23XI as ‘partner city’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denny Hamlin<\/a><\/strong> recognizes Chicago is an important city to his 23XI Racing team. It\u2019s where his partner in this venture Michael Jordan<\/a><\/strong> became an icon, but that\u2019s not the only reason he\u2019s a fan of the Windy City.<\/p>\n

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental<\/a> podcast, Hamlin elaborated on some of the sponsors for his race team that are anchored in Chicago. For that reason, among others, the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman is hoping NASCAR\u2019s partnership with the area remains for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very important partner city,\u201d Hamlin said<\/a>, regarding Chicago and 23XI. There\u2019s three main (sponsors). There were three main ones this weekend that this was a big deal for them. McDonald\u2019s, obviously \u2014 their headquarters is there. You have the Jordan Brand, for obvious reasons. And then it was an important one for Robinhood, as well. They had a bunch of people out. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it matters to us. In a world where, you know, if we don\u2019t sell sponsorship, we don\u2019t have a business \u2014 it\u2019s important, no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, NASCAR won\u2019t make the decision to remain in Chicago due to 23XI\u2019s ties, but it would be a nice deal for Hamlin\u2019s team. There\u2019s a bevy of other cities vying to host a street race, so NASCAR could opt to move in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Time will tell what happens, but a decision should be made in the near future. Whether it\u2019s Chicago or a different city, NASCAR will likely choose to keep the street race tradition going, as it\u2019s been a net positive for the sport.<\/p>\n

More on Denny Hamlin, NASCAR Chicago Street Race<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Chesterfield, Virginia native came home P4 at the end of the Chicago Street Race. A late strategy call to pit with a myriad of other Toyotas led to the No. 11 notching a top five at a track where Denny Hamlin\u2019s not usually considered much of a factor.<\/p>\n

While he didn\u2019t have anything for eventual winner Shane van Gisbergen<\/a>, Hamlin was more than satisfied with his result. He broke down what went into the strategy his team deployed during the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the leader of the group that thought they could make it after the Josh Berry<\/a> wreck,\u201d Hamlin stated<\/a>, regarding his strategy late in the race in Chicago. \u201cThere was a group that pitted when they saw (Berry) sitting there. There were five cars that pitted. (Crew chief Chris Gayle) was like, \u2018With a caution, we\u2019re fine, but save gas as if that caution\u2019s not coming. Save us a lap and a half or so of gas.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job at that point was, \u2018All right, get ahead of all the people that just pitted,\u2019 which I did. I passed those five cars, with the exception of [Tyler] Reddick<\/a>. \u2026 We got the track-position by doing that. But, you know, we pitted the same amount of times as SVG. We pit twice during the course of that race. So, we didn\u2019t do anything special, strategy-wise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just pitted once we got right at our field-window, just like everybody else did. We just really did a good job of getting spots, passing in the long run, passing on the short restarts. Like, it was one of our better road course races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin certainly is never the favorite when it comes to road courses, or street courses for that matter, but it was an impressive showing from the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman. Now, he\u2019ll have another shot at the track type, as the Cup Series is heading to Sonoma this coming weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin recognizes Chicago is an important city to his 23XI Racing team. It\u2019s where his partner in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-49508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114819335957924762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}