Racing is a family affair for Hamlin

While the inaugural Classic Car Fan Fest filled the parking lots at Joe Gibbs Racing headquarters, NASCAR’s Denny Hamlin pulled up in a yellow 2012 Lexus LFA.

The car, with just 500 miles on the odometer, sparkled brighter in the early morning sun than the shiny chrome bumpers and polished sheet metal of the ’56 Chevys, ’64 Corvettes, ’66 Mustangs and ’57 Fords.

Equipped with a 4.8 liter V10 engine, the Lexus lists at $375,000, but including options, Hamlin said it ran about a half-million. It’s one of about 15 models in the United States and 50 worldwide.

“It’s one of the cars that you buy and it sits in the garage for a long time,” Hamlin said.

But it wasn’t that long ago when his parents had to sell off their own classic car collection, drained their savings and twice mortgaged their house in Richmond, Va., to keep their son in a race car.

“We used to be in these car shows,” said Hamlin, who enters Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway third in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings. “My mom had a ’67 Camaro which was her prized possession, and when I turned 16 she had to sell it to buy me a race car.”

Hamlin’s father, Dennis, was a longtime service manager for Great Dane Trailers before opening Chesterfield Trailer and Hitch in 1996, where he sold and repaired trailers. The Hamlins supported their youngest of four children at go-kart tracks. At age 7, Denny won the first go-kart race he entered, and kept moving up from mini-stocks to stock cars and to late-models.

“My parents lived paycheck to paycheck, just like anyone else who had a kid in sports,” Hamlin said, “and it took a lot of money to race. It still does … And without sponsors … that’s something we didn’t have a whole lot of, it’s hard to be successful. That was our challenge.”

Dennis and Mary Lou Hamlin believed in their son, so they kept dipping into the family coffers.

“We wanted to give him every opportunity we could,” said Mary Lou Hamlin, 56. “We felt like he had what it would take to compete against the drivers. We pretty much put everything on the line. We figured our other kids were grown, and if anybody had to sacrifice anything, if it didn’t work out, it would be his dad and I …”

One by one, they parted with their classic cars to raise more cash to buy an engine or a chassis for Denny. They sold a 1932 Ford, a ’57 Chevy, a ’69 Camaro and, finally, Mary Lou’s prized ’67 Camaro Rally Sport convertible.

“I hated to see that thing go,” she said, “but it was worth it in the longer run.”

When they exhausted their savings and emptied their garage, the Hamlins told their son they were tapped out, and after the next race, he’d have to settle for working at the trailer shop.

In 2003, Denny showed up for a late-model race at the South Boston Speedway in Virginia. As he stood in line to register, he told another driver that he couldn’t finish the season and this would be his last race. Another driver, Jim Dean, overheard the conversation and offered to fund Hamlin for the rest of the season.

“When he heard it was our last week to race,” Hamlin recalled, “he said ‘I want to race against you, but I want to pay your way, because if we win and you’re not there, we didn’t beat the best.’ We literally were down to the last week or so of racing, and things worked out. We got the breaks we needed at the right time.”

Hamlin finished the season with Dean’s funding and drove for him the next year.

From there, Hamlin rocketed through the ranks of NASCAR, joining Joe Gibbs Racing in 2005, when Hamlin made his Sprint Cup debut at Kansas Speedway. He’s won 22 Sprint Cup races and has qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup in all seven years he’s been eligible.

“He is very fortunate,” Mary Lou said of her son. “We’re very fortunate. There are 1,000 other Denny Hamlins out there who never get the opportunity. He happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

Still, Hamlin, 32, is seeking his first championship. He finished second in 2010, winning eight races before he was overtaken for the championship by Jimmie Johnson in the final event.

“That took its toll on him,” Mary Lou Hamlin said, “but I have never seen him so focused and at ease as he is this year.”

Hamlin began the Chase as the top seed based on his four regular-season wins but fell into fourth after one race and has been third since winning at New Hampshire in the second race of the Chase. But he’s learned from the painful experience of 2010.

“You’ve got to stay relaxed,” he said. “One thing I didn’t do a whole lot of in 2010 was just concentrate on every single race and know what position I needed to finish in. I got lost in the shuffle of not enjoying the Chase that I was in. I’m having a whole lot more fun this time around and enjoying the experience.”

Hamlin, who has earned $48,797,372 in career winnings for Joe Gibbs Racing, has repaid his parents. They now live in his former home in Davidson, N.C. Dennis Hamlin, 62, sold the trailer company and retired.

Denny also bought his dad a vintage 1955 Chevrolet for Father’s Day a few years ago.

And his mom?

“I’m driving a Toyota Sequoia,” she said. “I’m satisfied with it.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2012 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Racing is a family affair for Hamlin ."