Denny Hamlin defends Landon Cassill after his “incorrect” take on the former’s $18M demand attracted backlash

A couple of days ago, NASCAR driver Landon Cassill took a jibe at Denny Hamlin's $18 million demand from NASCAR to run a team. However, the 23XI Racing co-owner fact-checked Cassill, claiming that the latter's take is "incorrect."

Hamlin elaborated that the $18M is merely to place their #23 and #45 Toyotas throughout the season, excluding driver's compensation. He stated that the NASCAR executives "agreed" when the teams revealed their balance sheet to show where those millions of dollars were going to go.

Hamlin further emphasized several off-track aspects that play a pivotal role in 23XI Racing's growth which he said he didn't even account for. An excerpt from his reply on X reads:

"You mentioned that anything we make beyond 18m is “profit”. That would be incorrect. As someone who started a team from scratch and kept it as lean as I could, there are MANY other depts at a race team that are 💯 necessary to operate. Business, marketing, sponsorship, social media, it goes on and on. That all cost a significant amount of money that is above and beyond the numbers listed above. That money is spent as not only as a necessity for our team but to GROW the sport thru on and off the track activation."

Post Denny Hamlin's response, a fan took a dig at Landon Cassill for not having a victory at the Cup level and having "no idea" about the expenses of running a Cup Series team.

However, the JGR driver defended Cassill from the fan's criticism.

"He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. (He hasn’t claimed that he knows all the facts) He’s giving his opinion on his platform that im absolutely supportive of. Im just here to help with some facts as they are needed so the debate can continue," he wrote.

NASCAR is a capital-intensive motorsport. In addition to the foremost expenses like stock car acquisition, a facility to keep them, haulers to transport them and several mechanics and engineers to constantly develop the car, many running costs like driver's salaries, repair work of the ride, transporting them and growing the team through social verticals among other things can burn a hole in the pocket of the team owners if not for the sponsors.

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Denny Hamlin discusses the working capital scarcity that NASCAR is denying funds to address

While conversing with Kenny Wallace on his podcast "Kenny Conversation", Denny Hamlin revealed that the 23XI Racing team owners have proposed that NASCAR apply for financially backing teams as the sponsors do. In return, NASCAR can use naming rights and earn revenue through official merchandising like in the NBA, WWE, NFL and several other sports.

However, a "no" is what the team owners have got despite their unwavering efforts to ease their financial burden.

"We have our own sponsors that NASCAR will send their own sponsorship proposal to, try to get them to spend money with them, but we need them the most because of our business model. It costs us $18 million a year to put a car on the racetrack. We've asked NASCAR to just cover our cost, nothing more just cover our cost to go put on this show for you, and the answer has been repeatedly, 'No,'" Hamlin said. [1:11:54]

Amid the ongoing charter negotiations, Hamlin pressed on the need to be cautious while drafting the deals after the team owners faced a disappointing outcome to their request to the CEO of NASCAR, Jim France.