Denny Hamlin celebrates his win after a NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway on Sunday in Long Pond, Pa. (AP photo)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Every NASCAR fan has seen aging drivers stay in the seat far past their prime.

It wasn’t pretty sometimes as the drivers struggled to qualify for races, found themselves struggling to stay on the lead lap, and more often than not their finish didn’t reflect the competitiveness they once showed.

Denny Hamlin doesn’t want to be that guy.

He’s 45, the oldest full-time active driver in the Cup Series, and is in the first year of a two-year contract that he says will be his last at NASCAR’s top level.

But he can’t stop winning — Sunday’s victory at Pocono Raceway was his fourth of the season, not including the non-points All-Star race, and third in a row — and with it comes questions Hamlin must answer about his future as a race car driver.

“We joked, we were like, ‘You’re a spring chicken, you have so many years left,'” said Joe Gibbs Racing co-owner Heather Gibbs. “Now we’re trying to think of how we can keep him longer.”

But Hamlin does have an expiration date as he’s said since announcing this two-year extension with JGR last year that 2027 will be his final season. He signed that contract before he came moments away from finally winning his first Cup championship in last year’s six-win season.

He signed that contract before he tied former teammate Kyle Busch for ninth on the all-time wins list with 63 victories two weeks ago.

He signed that contract before he won Sunday at Pocono — his eighth career win at the Pennsylvania track — to move ahead of Busch for sole possession of ninth place.

Now he’s on a hot streak and joined the club of Hall of Famers Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip as drivers to win three consecutive races. Tyler Reddick, who drives for Hamlin and co-owner Michael Jordan at 23XI Racing, won the first three races of this season, and JGR teammate Christopher Bell won three in a row in 2025.

Now Hamlin is on his own hot streak and is asked about that expiration date on his driving career every weekend.

“If — and that’s a big if — I’m at this point and this fast at this point next year, it would be a tough, tough decision,” he said. “Because, again, I’m planning for the downfall that I know will come.”

Hamlin has seen firsthand what happens to drivers who stay in the seat past their prime: Jimmie Johnson won three times in the 2017 season following his seventh championship, then failed to win again over the final 95 races of his full-time career.

Petty and Waltrip both went winless in their final eight Cup seasons, and Waltrip even had to buy his way into a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway when he failed to qualify on speed. Petty himself admitted he should have gotten out of the car sooner.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing