With Denny Hamlin’s $59,000,000,000-worth ally gone, JGR could strike a deal with Ryan Newman’s former sponsor: Reports

FedEx, a $59 billion transportation and logistics company, ended its long-standing partnership with Denny Hamlin as the 2024 season got over. Come 2025; he and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team reportedly could strike yet another lucrative deal with Progressive Insurance, which is headquartered in Ohio.

However, this isn’t Progressive’s first time putting dollars in the sport. It did some advertising around NASCAR last year; so much so that it ended up getting named the fourth-largest spender on NASCAR races, with about $1.855 million spent. Furthermore, it was the primary sponsor for Ryan Newman’s No. 6 RFK Mustang back in 2020.

Progressive has also been serving as the pit road sponsor for CW in its first year (according to the latest seven-year media deal) of covering the NASCAR Xfinity Series. And now, according to reports, it is most likely Denny Hamlin’s turn. Reporter Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal dropped the news through a recent story on X, formerly known as Twitter. He wrote,

“Sources have pegged Joe Gibbs Racing as the favorite to land Progressive’s business. The team’s No. 11 Toyota driven by Denny Hamlin has had a significant amount of inventory to fill with the loss of FedEx and Mavis Tires & Brakes over the offseason.”

That being said, neither party has made any comment on the same. Last week, JGR signed a two-race deal (Sonoma in July and Las Vegas in October) with AMPM, a West Coast-based gas station chain. As of today, Hamlin’s No. 11 team is backed by partners National Debt Relief, Sport Clips, King’s Hawaiian, and Yahoo.

Denny Hamlin is ahead of his sixth race of the season, which is scheduled for March 23 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Named Straight Talk Wireless 400, the 267-lap event will be televised by Fox Sports from 3 pm ET. Radio updates will be available on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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Denny Hamlin hits the jackpot at Las Vegas

Denny Hamlin finished as low as 25th in last Sunday’s (March 16) NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But he left the city richer. On Friday, Hamlin hit a huge jackpot of over $126,000 at a casino.

JGR driver jumped out of his seat, screaming in excitement, and proceeded to high-five several people who were around him. Hamlin uploaded the video on Instagram with the following caption:

“BUFFALOOOO!!!”

But that wasn’t the first time the Tampa, Florida native, hit the jackpot. Following the fall race at Phoenix Raceway back in 2022, Hamlin showed up at another casino and made $50,000 off of a $2 billion Powerball.

This time around, the veteran racer made more than triple that amount. His finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway wasn’t great by any means, but surely, he’ll have more things to talk about in the upcoming episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.