Up front: The flag and hat used to commemorate Kyle Busch by Denny Hamlin on Sunday after winning the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway will not be available for purchase.
As Hamlin said after his post-race press conference, this is a ‘one-time use only’ circumstance.
Hamlin matched Busch, who unexpectedly died last month at the age of 41, for ninth on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins list at 63. Hamlin reached 62 last week with a win at Nashville Superspeedway and knew immediately he needed to prepare for the possibility of back-to-back wins.
Ultimately, what he and everyone previously associated with the two-time Cup Series champion came up with is a design that utilized the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 1 font and the Richard Childress Racing No. 8.
That way, Busch could be honored for both of the numbers he is most associated with right now.
“It started Monday morning,” Hamlin said. “I mean, at that — right after the race, it was like, ‘okay, it’s something we probably ought to get on because we might win next week, right?’ So, we wanted to be prepared for that.
“Then I’m thinking do I put the 8? I know him as the 18. I don’t know the right thing, right?”
There were also three trademark holders involved because RCR owns the stylized 8. Joe Gibbs Racing owns the stylized 1. Michael Jordan owns the Jumpman that Hamlin uses for all his attire.
“It’s like we had to have some collaboration, and I appreciate RCR letting us use the stylized 8 with the Joe Gibbs Racing No 1,” Hamlin said. “It was just a happy balance that I felt good about when it all came out.
“The NASCAR community has kind of just been through it over the last — certainly the last few weeks, but then just generally in the last six, eight months. It’s been tough. I just wanted to pay my respects to someone that I really did look up to and taught me so much as a teammate. There’s nothing we can say or do that’s going to make his family feel better, but at least during that little time, you can pay him the respect that he deserves.”
Because of the legalese, the hat and flag will also not be sold nor will anything else be made featuring the combined fonts.
Also, Coach Joe Gibbs expects there to be an additional honoring of Busch this week at the shop when the go to celebrate with Hamlin. Busch and Hamlin were teammates from 2008 to 2022 — the 15 years being a NASCAR record for such a pairing.
“We’ll just be talking all that over,” Gibbs said after the race. “We normally have our celebration tomorrow and in the morning we’ll kind of talk about what all we want to do with it, but I would imagine that’s going to be a part of it and that’ll be something special.”
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