Denny Hamlin Going For 3 In A Row @ Darlington

Denny Hamlin owns the Darlington Raceway, minus the legally binding paperwork.

Hamlin enters Friday's Diamond Hill Plywood 200 with last weekend's momentum-building win in his native Virginia in tow. Then again, Hamlin doesn't need momentum, luck or any type of racing superstition on his side at Darlington. He has history. Hamlin made his Nationwide Series debut at Darlington in 2004 and finished eighth, unheard of for a rookie at a track known for its sandy, abrasive and unpredictable surface and whose walls award "Darlington stripes" to unsuspecting -- and suspecting -- drivers.Since his debut, it's safe to say that Hamlin has charmed the "Lady in Black." He finished seventh in 2005 and won from the pole the past two seasons. On Friday, he will make his 100th career start on his best track."Darlington has always been special to me since I made my first Nationwide Series start there," Hamlin said. "I remember coming to my first test there (in 2004). I must have made 50 laps and hit some part of the wall on 49 of those laps. To come from that to win there the last two years really meant a lot to me."I quickly found out that you really have to be on your toes every lap at Darlington. As soon as you lose focus, it can be very easy to make a mistake. It's a fun track to me because it challenges the driver on every lap. The key to running well there on the old surface was having a lot of patience. You really had to be careful not to use up your tires too early. (You have to) run your own pace and not focus on how hard other guys are running."As if the track dubbed "too tough to tame" wasn't challenging enough, track officials upped the ante recently by repaving the storied surface. "I was hoping when they said the track was repaved that everyone was just lying to me because we had such a good car there the last two years," Hamlin quipped. "This race will definitely be different since the track will have a ton of grip, and the tires won't wear nearly as much. How good the racing is this weekend will depend on what kind of tire Goodyear brings."

Hamlin, who has split his time with Joe Gibbs Racing and Braun Racing this season, will drive the No. 18 JGR Toyota. Gibbs has won the past five Nationwide events, including last weekend's win with Hamlin at Richmond. Tony Stewart won two weeks ago, ending Kyle Busch's three-race winning streak. Stewart and Busch also are entered in Friday's race.

Fast facts

What: Diamond Hill Plywood 200.

Where: Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

When: 7:30 p.m. ET Friday

. TV: ESPN2, 7 p.m. ET.

Radio: MRN/Sirius Satellite Ch. 128.

Track layout: 1.366-mile oval.

Race distance: 147 laps/200 miles.

2007 winner: Denny Hamlin.

2007 polesitter: Denny Hamlin.

Points leaders:

1. Clint Bowyer, 1,565

2. Carl Edwards, 1,556

3. Kyle Busch, 1,553

4. David Ragan, 1,434

5. Mike Bliss, 1,424

6. David Reutimann, 1,407

7. Brad Keselowski, 1,382

8. Jason Leffler, 1,342

9. Mike Wallace, 1,297

10. David Stremme, 1,177

Darlington Notes - Denny Hamlin

EXPRESS NOTES:
Domination Denied at Richmond - Hamlin, #11 FedEx Racing Team 24th at RIR: In a heartbreaking turn of events at Richmond International Raceway, Denny Hamlin's dream of adding a Cup triumph to his Nationwide victory was undone by a late tire issue. Hamlin started from the pole in front of his hometown fans and though he led an incredible 380 of the first 381 laps and had not suffered even a semi-serious challenge for position on the night, the cut tire forced him to pit road and three full laps off the pace. He finished a very disappointing 24th and drops to sixth in the points.
Hamlin at Darlington Raceway: Hamlin will be making his 90th career Cup start and his third Cup start at the famous Darlington Raceway this weekend. Hamlin's Nationwide Series record at Darlington speaks for itself - two wins in four starts - but his Cup record may be equally impressive given his limited amount of starts. Last season, Hamlin led 178 laps before a dropped lug nut on pit road forced him back to 15th place with only 65 laps to run. He recovered to finish second but it was a race certainly chalked up in the "missed opportunity" category. In 2006, Hamlin ran in the top five for the first half of the race before negotiating handling issues and a cooling track to secure a 10th-place finish in his Cup debut at Darlington. Overall Hamlin has secured top-ten finishes in all six races, both Nationwide and Sprint Cup, he has started at Darlington.
Of special note is the fact this track played a big role in getting Hamlin into a Busch and Cup series ride at Joe Gibbs Racing as well. Just three months after turning in a top-ten debut in the Truck Series at Indianapolis Raceway Park, Denny lined up for his first Busch series race at one of NASCAR’s trickiest tracks. Despite the considerable odds against him, he earned well-deserved acclaim as he posted a top-ten finish in his Darlington debut.
Darlington Chassis 196 & 204: Chassis 196 will be the primary this weekend at Darlington. It last saw action at California in February of this year and sustained heavy damage when Hamlin hit water on the rain-soaked two-mile track and then hit hard against the turn two wall. 204 will also be on the truck this weekend. It finished ninth at Las Vegas earlier this season.
HAMLIN CONVERSATION - DARLINGTON RACEWAY:
Darlington is a place that you've had a lot of success. What is it about this track that you like?:

Denny: "Darlington tends to reward consistency and I think that's one of my better attributes as a driver. In my first couple of seasons people would say that I tend to disappear during races and then pop up at the end. I think that really comes down to the fact that as a driver, and based on my upbringing, I really try not to put the car in bad situations. And, as a team, we take a steady approach when it comes to making changes. Nothing wild, just small improvements all race long so we have the car at its best when the race is on the line. That's our strategy and Darlington rewards that kind of strategy because it is so easy to get in trouble. All you can do is work to beat the other cars because if you try to beat a track like Darlington, it will beat you right back."
Four practice sessions are scheduled to get you ready for racing there on Saturday night. Having not yet been on this new surface, what are you expecting?:

Denny:"From everything I have heard, I expect it to be very different. Darlington will always be Darlington in that the places to get in trouble are still the same. It appears that speeds are going to be up but we should have more grip to work with. It will be interesting to see how the tire will perform so to have the extra practices should help a lot. We didn't have the benefit of the tire test here earlier in the season but that doesn't mean we won't know what we are dealing with when we get there."
Richmond was, all things considered, still a very good weekend for you. Talk about the launch of your foundation.

Denny: "Richmond had some highlights and one obvious low point on Saturday night, but the launch of the Denny Hamlin Foundation was an important event for me. We raised $50,000 at our charity race last Thursday night and were able to present a check in that amount to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. This sport has given me a huge opportunity and I truly hope that I can build the Denny Hamlin Foundation into a great charity. I have a personal connection, through a cousin that has been diagnosed, to Cystic Fibrosis and it's a great place to lend support - I hope to raise the profile of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation throughout the NASCAR community. FedEx was the first to jump in when I was starting the foundation, both with financial support and advice. I learned a lot through our helmet program and interaction with kids at Children's Hospitals across the country and it made me want to get more involved and get my own foundation up and running."

Hamlin made a mistake, not concoct a conspiracy

Four years ago, needing a yellow to avoid falling a lap down at Bristol Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. spun his car to bring out a caution. He admitted as much after the race, and was fined $10,000 and docked 25 points as a result. Two years earlier, looking for a caution to draw leader and eventual winner Ryan Newman back to the field, Kurt Busch spun Robby Gordon in the all-star exhibition. "We needed a yellow so we could put on a good show at the end," he said, comments the fans may have appreciated but NASCAR did not. The sanctioning body fined him $10,000 as well.
There were no such admissions -- and smartly so -- by Denny Hamlin in the aftermath of last Saturday night's event at Richmond International Raceway, which turned into a complete free-for-all in the closing laps after Hamlin cut a tire and Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecked racing for the lead. Junior Nation went expectedly apoplectic, demanding the younger Busch's noggin on a pike. Wherever he went during this week's test at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Busch was escorted by three security guards, which might have been a ploy by track promoter Humpy Wheeler to milk the incident for all it's worth.
And who can blame him? Busch is public enemy No. 1 right now. Of course, lost in all this is the fact that Busch would likely never have gotten within ramming distance of Earnhardt had Hamlin's car not stopped in the high lane with a shredded tire, bringing out a caution with 10 laps remaining and setting the stage for what was to follow. That Hamlin was later able to drive to pit road didn't sit well with race officials, who parked the Joe Gibbs Racing driver for two laps. It all combined to create a seemingly unshakable premise -- Hamlin had chosen that very point to stop, knowing the yellow would help Busch catch Earnhardt. He had taken one for the team.

Denny Hamlin's dream weekend turned into a nightmare at Richmond. Why? Josh Pate says it's tough to find justification.

Or had he? Sure, NASCAR officials penalized him two laps Saturday night, but thus far there have been no fines or point deductions like those assessed to Earnhardt and Kurt Busch in similar, previous situations. According to series officials, none are expected. In communication over the radio, Hamlin and crew chief Mike Ford were obsessed over the state of the tire, not the position of their teammate. And addressing the situation at the Charlotte test, Hamlin said he had equipment issues that forced him to stop.
"I was trying to get to pit road, and the problem was, if I ran any kind of speed around the racetrack, I was going to drag the sway-bar arm off," he said. "It went in Turn 3, and that's when I totally lost the entire tire. So I stopped trying to be able to turn it down onto pit road, but I had already crossed over the wall. I didn't want to risk tearing up the car to where we couldn't finish the race. So I knew I had to stop, or else I was going to jeopardize us even finishing the race. It was a fine line there. We had to stop, or else we were going to get a DNF. Because our sway-bar arms, the way they are designed, they just can't stay on that racetrack for long, and we were already dragging it as soon as the tire started going down. Just one of those deals, I guess."
So was he trying to help Busch win the race? "I didn't even know where Kyle was out on the racetrack," he said. "For all I know, he was leading the race."
That much is plausible. During a race, drivers are ensconced in 3,400-pound, 150 mph cocoons that demand their immediate and unwavering attention. Listen to a driver over the radio, and he'll occasionally ask his spotter where his teammates are running. Because strapped inside all that sheet metal, able to look only forward, he often has no real idea. Of all the people watching the race, drivers have the worst vantage point. They see only their switches and dials and windshield and rearview mirror, and have to rely on the voices in their ear for just about everything else.
Was the caution Hamlin prompted by stopping on the racetrack the primary reason his teammate Busch was able to catch Earnhardt? Unquestionably. Did it indirectly cause the wreck that followed? Absolutely. But this isn't Junior spinning himself out, or Kurt Busch punting the guy directly in front of him. To think that Hamlin, stressed out with a tire going down after leading almost every lap of a race at his hometown track, had the time or the wherewithal to concoct some grand conspiracy plot is stretch of reason. More likely it was just stubbornness and anger, hoping against hope that the thing would hold out a while longer, an unwillingness to accept that so much within his grasp was being taken away.
"Just from an outsider looking in, it looked very obvious to me that he was frustrated, overly frustrated that he had just led 300-some laps and was pretty much going to win that race," Jeff Gordon said. "I think he was extremely upset and frustrated. Obviously he didn't do what most people would do, which was come to pit road long before the tire blows, you know? It was obvious when I went by him that he had a real issue, that is all I can say. I don't know why he stopped, why he didn't come to pit road, but that would be my guess."
But of course, this is NASCAR, where any unfortunate event becomes some kind of grand scheme on the level of alien beings in desert hangars or straw men on a grassy knoll. Yes, Denny Hamlin certainly made a mistake, and very likely broke some unwritten rule of driver etiquette by staying on the track too long, getting in the way, and influencing the outcome. But that doesn't make him Lee Harvey Oswald. It makes him exactly what he is -- a young, headstrong driver who hopefully will learn from the experience, maybe get to pit road a little quicker next time, and not let his frustrations affect others trying to finish.

By David Caraviello NASCAR.COM

Fed Ex Racing Express Facts - Darlington

When Denny Hamlin got the news that Darlington (S.C.) Raceway was being repaved, he hoped someone was playing a cruel joke on him.
The driver of the No. 18 Farm Bureau Insurance Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing is the two-time and reigning champion of the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Darlington. But his 117 total laps led in those back-to-back wins – which began from the pole each time – came on the old and gritty asphalt that lined Darlington’s historic 1.366-mile layout.
And aside from winning the past two Nationwide Series races at Darlington, Hamlin has some additional history at the 58-year-old track.
The 27-year old Chesterfield Va.-native made his Nationwide Series debut at Darlington in November 2004, ironically with the No. 18 team that he’ll be competing with this weekend. Hamlin impressed that day, as he qualified 27th and rallied his way to an eighth-place finish. The effort made the NASCAR world take notice, for a driver to earn a top-10 at Darlington in his first start was virtually unheard of, as Darlington is better known as a track that chews up and spits out rookies and veterans alike.
This weekend, Hamlin will be 98 races removed from the last time he wheeled the No. 18 for Joe Gibbs Racing, as he’s spent his time since behind the wheel of either Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 machine or Braun Racing’s No. 32 entry.
While Darlington has always been known as the track “Too Tough to Tame” thanks in large part to its tight confines and formerly abrasive surface, this weekend’s race at the egg-shaped oval will have plenty of unknowns with the introduction of new asphalt.
However, one of the great knowns this season is the Nationwide Series dominance by Joe Gibbs Racing. In the 11 races contested so far this season, Joe Gibbs Racing has seven victories, four poles and its drivers have led 1,027 of the 1,918 laps possible (53.5 percent). In addition to the overall season dominance, Joe Gibbs Racing has been particularly impressive of late, posting five consecutive wins, with the No. 18 team winning at Texas and Phoenix and the No. 20 team winning at Mexico City, Talladega (Ala.) and Richmond (Va.).
Hamlin has also been on a hot streak of his own, as he posted his first Nationwide Series win of the year last week at Richmond, his hometown track.
As Hamlin looks for a second straight Nationwide Series victory and his third straight at Darlington in his 100th career Nationwide Series race, he’ll be joined by the employees and agents of the Farm Bureau Insurance Companies. Through their 4,200-member agency sales force, Farm Bureau Insurance provides auto, home and life insurance to customers and fans throughout the Southeast.
Darlington marks the first race for Hamlin in Farm Bureau Insurance colors, but it’s the second of six events where Farm Bureau Insurance will adorn a Nationwide Series entry from Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin’s teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch, dominated the Nicorette 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this season in the No. 20 Farm Bureau Insurance Toyota, a he led five times for a race-high 153 laps before a right-front shock failure ended his bid to give Farm Bureau Insurance its first NASCAR victory.
While Hamlin’s past success at Darlington won’t “insure” a victory for him and Farm Bureau Insurance, the six-time Nationwide Series race winner still plans to carry his momentum from a week ago at Richmond, along with the train-like momentum of Joe Gibbs Racing, into the track that should now be called “New Tough to Tame.”
Denny Hamlin – Driver, No. 18 Farm Bureau Insurance NASCAR Nationwide Series Toyota Camry at Darlington
You’ve won the last two Nationwide Series races at Darlington. But now that it’s repaved, what kind of race do you expect?
“I was hoping when they said the track was repaved that everyone was just lying to me because we had such a good car there the last two years. Dave (Rogers, No. 20 team crew chief) seemed like he found a great setup for that place. It’s tough to say what kind of race we’ll have since it’s hard to imagine Darlington with new pavement. It’s hard to say how good the racing is going to be since I haven’t been on the repaved track, yet. Regardless, I know that Jason Ratcliff (No. 18 team crew chief) and all the guys on the Farm Bureau Insurance team will be on their game like they have been all season long. The only thing that concerns me is if we’re going to have a good tire there. Hopefully, Goodyear will bring a good tire that isn’t too hard, so it will allow us to run side-by-side.”
How special was it to win at Richmond last weekend in front of your family and friends?
“Winning last Friday night was my biggest accomplishment as a race car driver so far in my career. Obviously, winning the Sprint Cup race on Saturday night would have been huge, too. But that just wasn’t in the cards, I guess. We’ve worked so hard to get a win at Richmond and things finally worked out in our favor. We might not have had the best car all day, but we put ourselves into the position to be up front in the end when it counted. I could hear the fans cheering when I was doing my burnout and in victory lane, which made the night even more special. That means more to me than any trophy I could ever receive.”
You’re making your first start in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 car since you made your series debut in 2004 at Darlington. What are you expecting from crew chief Jason Ratcliff and the team this weekend?
“Jason Ratcliff has done such a great job to help build the JGR Nationwide Series program, just like Dave (Rogers) has. Even though the 18 guys aren’t running every race this year, Jason is at the race track every week, learning everything he can to prepare for the races they run, as well as help Dave and the 20 team at the same time Those two guys are a key reason why the JGR Nationwide Series program has been so strong in the early part of the season. I’m excited to get back with the 18 guys since they were the team to give me my first Nationwide Series start back in 2004. The core group of guys that were with me in 2004 are still a part of that team, so it’s going to be special to be back with the 18 at Darlington. To get back with them and know they had a few weeks to prepare for this race really gives me a lot of confidence that we can run up front and challenge for the win on Friday night.”
Now that Joe Gibbs is back in North Carolina and back near the race team a bit more, have you seen a difference in how he motivates your race team and everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing?
“Working for Coach Gibbs has always been great, but it’s really nice to have him back around the race team a lot more. He’s just so proactive at finding out problems within the race team. I’m not sure there are many owners who are around the shop as much as he is. He walks around the shop floor, working with the guys. He’s working with sponsors and engineers, too. When we have an issue, it doesn’t just go to our crew chiefs. It goes to Joe and he takes it and runs with it. I think that’s why you see the performance of Joe Gibbs Racing really picking up this year. I think he’s such a huge asset to have around, and I’m happy he’s able to be in the race shop more this year.”

Meet the No. 18 Farm Bureau Insurance / Joe Gibbs Racing Team
Primary Team Members:
Driver: Denny Hamlin
Crew Chief: Jason Ratcliff
Car Chief: Leo Thorsen
Engine Builder: Mark Cronquist
Engine Tuner: Mike Johnson
Spotter: Curtis Markham
Over-The-Wall Crew Members:
Gas Man: Brad Rothlin (also serves as shock specialist)
Front Tire Changer: Nick O’Dell
Catch Can Man: Toby Bigelow (also serves as mechanic)
Front Tire Carrier: Brad Donaghy
Windshield: Mike Shelton (also serves as mechanic)
Rear Tire Changer: Jake Seminera
Jack Man: Jason Tate (also serves as mechanic)
Rear Tire Carrier: Jay Barry
Other Crew Members:
Truck Drivers: Dennis Valverde and Rodney Valverde
Tire Specialist: Jason Clements
Engineer: Joel Weidman
Scorer: Leslie Goggin

The Car
Chassis No. 1861: This car made its only start of the season earlier this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with Kyle Busch at the controls. He led 18 laps before a cut right-front tire and subsequent accident ended his day and resulted in a 31st-place finish. Chassis No. 1861 also ran three times last season, with its first race coming at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta with former JGR driver Brad Coleman finishing a career-best second. The car returned to action in August at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, where Coleman finished 15th. And finally, Tony Stewart drove this car to a seventh-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth after leading a race-high 114 laps. Stewart was dominant that day, but contact midway through the race with a lapped car hurt the car’s aerodynamics.