Impressive Start to NH Weekend

Denny Hamlin had a special delivery in Boston, MA on his way to this weekend's race in Loudon, NH. Hamlin dropped off a hybrid Toyota Prius to Community Servings - a non-profit organization that prepares, packages and delivers meals to those in need throughout the greater Boston area. The donation from Fed Ex was presented on Thursday during a program at the group's facility in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. Hamlin was joined by crew chief Mike Ford and members of the #11 Fed Ex team.

The good karma generated from the trip to Boston carried over to the team's qualifying efforts. Hamlin qualified Chassis 214, which made its racing debut at Loudon, in twelth spot, the highest among the Joe Gibbs Racing trio. Hamlin turned a lap of 29.641 seconds at 128.498 mph on the 1.058-mile oval.

“It was a good pick up (from practice) for our FedEx Ground Toyota,” said Hamlin, who won at New Hampshire in July 2007. “All we could ask for was to pick up, because we usually lose time when it comes to qualifying. We’ll definitely take this effort and move on to the race.”

Rookie Patrick Carpentier put his #10 Dodge on the pole for Gillette Evernham Racing with a time of 29.349 seconds at 129.776 mph. Former JGR driver Bobby Labonte will start along side Carpentier for Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at Loudon, New Hampshire.

An impressive run for the Fed Ex Toyota team, in spite a rain delay that haulted qualifying for a while. Returning to a track where he has won before will likely pay off for Hamlin when the green flag drops. With any luck the Ground car will leave Patrick Carpentier, and the other 41 drivers in the field, scrambling for the pits to make adjustments to their cars in an attempt to keep up with race dominating Denny Hamlin.

I will keep my fingers crossed that things go well for Hamlin, crew chief Mike Ford and the entire Fed Ex Ground crew on race day.