Denny Hamlin is poised to be a championship contender is 2010.
His victory in the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami
Speedway last season vaulted the No. 11 team to fifth in the final
point standings. He improved his win tally for the year to
career-high four victories (tying him with teammate Kyle Busch).
The win also lifted the team’s morale and Hamlin’s
level of confidence entering this year.
“I’m excited for sure,” Hamlin said.
“With the discussions I’ve had with the guys at Joe
Gibbs Racing and the direction they decided to take in the
offseason, I’m definitely confident. It might not show for
the first six months of the season, but we’re going to set
ourselves up to be right where we need to be when the Chase
starts.”
Hamlin, like other Chase for the Sprint Cup regulars, hopes
to be the driver that can thwart Jimmie Johnson’s
stranglehold on the championship. So it’s not surprising that
his crew have adopted a pace-yourself mentality similar to the No.
48 team’s where the squad doesn’t peak early during the
first 26 races then burnout during the playoffs like many other
challengers.
Still, it will take more than talent and good intentions to
derail the Johnson express.
“Luck is a factor,” Hamlin said. “Speed is
a factor. It’s not just having all your ducks in a row and
making sure you have the fastest car each week. It doesn’t
work like that. It’s the strategy. It’s the fuel
mileage. It’s the luck. It’s not getting into wrecks.
There’s so much that formulates into being a champion.
“The 48 car has been the standard, but he’s also
been really lucky in a lot of situations. So he’s had all
those pieces put together over the last four years.”
There are those that have naively underestimated
Hamlin’s crew chief Mike Ford over the years — even the
driver himself. However, Ford is one of the most calculating
veterans in the garage. His leadership of the team — and
patience with Hamlin through the driver’s maturation process
— has paid off over the last four seasons.
“For the first year and a half, I thought Mike was an
old school guy,” Hamlin said. “He’s come up with
some great innovated ideas that has made our team what it is now. I
may have doubted him at times, but I tell you over the last 18
months he’s gained all my respect.”
And although Hamlin admits to "losing his head" at times, he
has steadily earned respect from his fellow competitors through his
performance over the past four years. In each full season in the
Sprint Cup Series, Hamlin has been a Chase contender.
However, Hamlin hopes to gain a similar regard from the
sanctioning body as his public stock rises. He expects to meet with
NASCAR in the next few days as part of the sport’s recent
commitment toward establishing a more open line of communication
with his garage. Hamlin was on vacation in Los Angeles last week
when the individual team discussions with the sanctioning body
began but was pleased when President Mike Helton told Hamlin what
ideas were on the table.
The extremely outspoken racer has concrete ideas on what
changes he would like to see in the future. A longtime advocate of
eliminating the no-bump drafting zones and racing below the yellow
line at Daytona and Talladega, Hamlin will take satisfaction in
seeing both rules disappear if NASCAR indeed continues down that
path.
“I told everyone that’s the way it should be and
now it’s going to happen,” Hamlin said. “I love
it. They gave us the asphalt. They gave us the race cars. And now
we’re going to race them.
"You’ll see really, really good racing without a
doubt."
