Denny Hamlin made some fascinating points as it pertained to how NASCAR fans choose their favorite drivers.
In other sports, most fans will root for a city, specifically their hometown or somewhere along those lines. However, NASCAR doesn’t have that luxury, so it’s all about the driver. Well, drivers can’t race forever, so eventually there comes a day when a fan has to make a tough choice.
We’ve seen it with fans of drivers like Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin. It can be tough to get back on the horse and pick a new racer after so many seasons of riding with one specific driver.
So will NASCAR fans ever choose to root for a team — like Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing — over a singular driver? Hamlin, as an owner with 23XI Racing, would love to see the day, but he simply isn’t that optimistic.
“We’d like to think that it’s possible, but it’s likely not,” Hamlin theorized, via his Actions Detrimental podcast. “I understand the premise of it. Like when a Kevin Harvick retire at the end of the year. That’s a good amount of fans that are Kevin Harvick fans. Are they going to jump ship right to Josh Berry, because they’re SHR fans, or No. 4 fans? Or do they just go away? So that’s the problem that I guess they’re talking about. … It’s a good talking point to think about. I think the challenge with that is that the reason people will root for teams is because they represent a city.
“If you live in Charlotte, you’re going to root for the home team. All of our race teams are within a 30, 40-mile radius, so there’s no home team, as far as in racing. I know (Trackhouse Owner) Justin Marks talked a bit about trying to get his team to be the Nashville team, but I don’t know. That’d be a very expensive campaign, to try and make that work, and I just don’t know if you’re going to have enough people resonate with that.”
Hamlin makes some solid points regarding the interesting question. It’ll be something to keep an eye on, whether Harvick’s fans leave the sport entirely, choose to root for Berry or jump-ship to another driver on a different team.
Nevertheless, NASCAR has survived losing some of their biggest stars in the past, but perhaps the way fans root for drivers is something that needs to be examined, by more than just Denny Hamlin.
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