DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Toward the end of last season, as he inched closer and closer to the NASCAR Cup Series championship that still eludes him, Denny Hamlin noticed something a bit strange.

Fewer boos.

As the now-45-year-old driver was announced at each racetrack in 2025, Hamlin, after years of embracing the role of villain in a sport in desperate need of one, had a heel-turn to the light. He transformed into the “good guy”: the crusading owner taking on NASCAR in the courtroom. He became the “deserving guy”: the aging all-time great who had yet to win it all.

Will it feel strange, Denny, if the cheers come again Sunday in this year’s Daytona 500?

Hamlin, in the infield of Daytona International Speedway on Wednesday, shrugged and smiled.

“It’s the noise that you really want,” he said.

That sentiment contains multitudes.

After all, there have been a lot of quiet moments for Hamlin in the past few months. Silences that were uncomfortable. Painful. On Dec. 29, Hamlin lost his father, Dennis. Dennis was 75 and ill, but the cause of his death was a house fire in the Stanley community in North Carolina, about 20 miles northwest of Charlotte. Hamlin’s mother, Mary Lou, was critically injured in the fire, though Hamlin told reporters Wednesday that she’s “doing a lot better.”

The NASCAR community mourned the death together. It was a milestone in a very difficult offseason. It included a long, divisive legal battle that nearly ripped the sport apart; it included a shocking plane crash that claimed the lives of former Cup star and North Carolina humanitarian Greg Biffle and six others.

But as Hamlin readies to race his 21st Daytona 500 on Sunday — and go for his fourth Daytona 500 victory — there are two men in particular he was asked about.

Two men who understand his pain of personal loss just as they crest their professional peak.

Michael Jordan and Joe Gibbs.

Hamlin understood why.

Jordan, of course, is Hamlin’s friend and business partner. Jordan is the principal owner of 23XI Racing, which Hamlin co-owns and effectively runs. The two got incredibly close this offseason, sitting side by side in a federal courtroom in Charlotte as 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports took NASCAR to trial on the grounds that NASCAR operated as an unlawful monopoly. The trial ended in a settlement.

Jordan can relate to Hamlin because the six-time NBA champion and sports icon lost his father, James Jordan, in a murder in July 1993. It was highly publicized. Invasive. It came at the peak of Jordan’s career, much as it did with Hamlin. It was particularly brutal for a son who leaned on his father as much as MJ did; after his fourth championship, in 1996, in a moment of what’s supposed to be jubilation, Jordan realized in real time who wasn’t there to embrace him and broke down crying in the locker room.

Gibbs, too, knows Hamlin’s feeling of loss well. The owner of Joe Gibbs Racing — which has employed Hamlin as a driver for decades — has lost two sons in his lifetime. The first was J.D. Gibbs, who passed at age 49 in 2019. The second was Coy Gibbs, who passed at 49, too, three years after J.D. Coy passed in his sleep — the night his son (and Joe’s grandson), Ty, won the Xfinity Series championship.

It’s all devastating, all painful.

But sharing the pain has helped, Hamlin said.

“(Jordan), obviously, reached out multiple times and offered any help he could,” Hamlin said. “Since we were in Winston-Salem (near his parents’ home), he knew a lot of people in that area.”

Hamlin added: “Joe certainly is someone who is very special to me and has been. Joe beat me to the hospital the night-of. The guy is just unbelievable in how he is as a leader. And obviously he has been through it. My connection, really at that personal level, is more so with Joe. And it’s always been that way since he kind of took over as my ‘at-track dad.’ ”

Hamlin said that Gibbs made it a point to visit Dennis approximately once a week — telling him stories, praying with him.

“My dad was really trying to get right with the Lord last year,” Hamlin said, laughing. “It felt like Joe was someone who really kind of helped with that. It’s not like my parents lived right down the street. He took his time out of his day to visit him, and I know my dad really appreciated that.”

There are many other stresses taking up Hamlin’s time. That includes the torn muscle in his right shoulder, which he doesn’t expect to affect his run in Daytona, but he admitted he doesn’t know how such an injury — and its accompanying inevitable soreness — will affect life week to week, race to race.

But as Hamlin readies for Sunday, he feels supported.

By the fans who bring the noise — boos or cheers — and who have made him feel like “a champion.”

And by two men in particular, who know how important quelling that sort of silence can be.

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