Watch: Denny Hamlin’s daughter gets crew chief’s approval to let Lulu stay after father's impressive Bristol run

Denny Hamlin's daughter Taylor has secured her dog Lulu's place in their household for "another week." This comes after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver surged from below the cutline to advance to the Round of 12, slated to begin at Kansas Speedway.

The Round of 16 elimination battle at the Bristol Motor Speedway witnessed JGR coming away with mixed results. While on the one hand, Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs failed to make their respective way into the next round, Hamlin and Christopher Bell, on the other, propelled their Toyotas into the Round of 12 with a 7 and 24-point cushion, respectively.

Hamlin's family took in Lulu, a rescue dog, after finding him under the Gateway Arch in St. Loius. Soon after, the #11 Toyota driver began to witness a drop in his performance. The Virginia native had brought the stray dog home after wrapping up his Enjoy Illinois 300 race in second place at Gateway Motorsports Park,

Before Lulu's arrival, Denny Hamlin had three wins in his 2024 campaign, with an average finish of P12. However, following Lulu's arrival, the 54-time Cup Series race winner couldn't clinch a single win, and, on top of that, succumbed to three DNFs while registering an average finish of P20.

It prompted crew chief Chris Gabehart to "explore removing" the dog to see if the performance slope changed.

Last Saturday, with Lulu still in residence, Hamlin secured a fourth-place finish at the Bass Pro Shops Night Race and converted his pre-race 13th-place playoff standing into a place in the Round of 12.

Following the race, Taylor requested Gabehart's permission to let the dog stay, in a humorous exchange. A video shared by Matt Weaver on X (formerly Twitter) shows the conversation between the two at the end of the race.

In the video, Taylor calls Gabehart over and says,

"Chris. Can Lulu still stay though?"

"Close enough. She survives another week," Gabehart replied with a laugh.

"Let's go dog. Let's go!" Taylor said.

You can watch the video of this exchange below:

Hamlin is placed sixth in the playoff standings, out of eight drivers above the bubble.

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"She can stay for now" - Months after jokingly claiming Lulu as "bad luck", Denny Hamlin makes U-turn after Bristol night race

Not only did Denny Hamlin bag three Cup wins before Lulu's arrival but he also clinched six consecutive top-5s following his victory at Dover Motor Speedway. However, after the dog's arrival, the #11 Toyota driver couldn't settle inside the top 10 for the five races after.

As a result, before the Pocono race, where he finished second, Hamlin joked about the adopted dog being "bad luck" for him. During an episode of the "Actions Detrimental" podcast, the veteran driver touched upon a possible connection between dog's arrival and his results. He said,

"Lulu is bad luck, you can't argue with the records. We're on a five-race skid, after having five top-fives in a row...? I mean we're on a slide, we got to give that damn dog away."

However, after starting eighth at Bristol on Saturday, and then grabbing the sixth spot in Stage 1, third in Stage 2, and fourth in the final stage, Hamlin had a different message to share on his X account.

He wrote,

"She can stay for now"

Denny Hamlin hasn't won a Cup Series championship since debuting in 2005 at Kansas Speedway, but has a shot at breaking the unwanted record this year.