Once again – and for the third time in three races at Bristol Motor Speedway - 
Denny Hamlin drove the #11 FedEx Toyota forward from a mid-pack start into a battle for the win before ultimately finishing a Bristol career-best of second in Sunday’s Food City 500.
Denny Hamlin drove the #11 FedEx Toyota forward from a mid-pack start into a battle for the win before ultimately finishing a Bristol career-best of second in Sunday’s Food City 500.The second-place finish keeps a string of great runs at Bristol alive. One year ago, Hamlin held the lead before fuel pickup problems left him in sixth place, and last fall Hamlin and the FedEx team put together a solid race to finish third.
“We had a long-run car today - we didn’t have that short run car when we needed it at the end,” explained Hamlin after the event. “There were about 300,000 FedEx employees that were hoping that we were going to get a win today, I'm just trying to get a win for them but we came up a little bit short.
Congratulations to Kyle (Busch). It’s great to get a one-two finish for Joe Gibbs Racing and just can’t thank this whole team enough. A good job on pit road today, very solid. We feel like we deserve to be in victory lane and hopefully we’ll get that done next week,”
Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch took the checkered flag after a long battle with Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson to make it a one-two JGR finish. The third JGR car, driven by Joey Logano, experienced engine problems late in the race and was scored in 38th place.
The second-place finish marks Hamlin’s best results of the still-young 2009 season and sees him jump from 14th to eighth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings through six races. The series now heads to Martinsville Speedway, a favorite track of Hamlin and the site of his most-recent Cup Sseries win.
From the drop of the green flag, Hamlin charged forward and quickly erased the memory of qualifying 24th from his mind. As he was putting most of the competition in his rear view mirror, the only problem the team encountered was a rising water temperature – a problem that was exacerbated when the yellow came out and the field was slowed.
By lap 55 Hamlin had cracked the top 20 and ran in 16th place but things were about to even get better for the #11FedEx Express team. On lap 64, with the team scored in 15th place, Crew Chief Mike Ford called Hamlin onto pit road and opted for a two tire change in effort to gain track position. The decision paid off for the FedEx team as Hamlin gained five sports and lined up to restart tenth.
Hamlin continued to carve his way through the field, claiming sixth place on lap 100, fifth on lap 110, and fourth place on lap 111 – all while turning the quickest laps of any car on the track.
When the caution flew on lap 123 Hamlin was running fourth and was very happy with the way his car felt. The crew made no chassis adjustments and a very quick stop by the FedEx team had Hamlin out to restart third behind leader Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson in second place.On lap 130 Hamlin claimed second from Johnson after a fierce, multi-lap duel with the three-time Sprint Cup Champion.
On lap 191, Hamlin made his fourth pit stop of the afternoon; this time Ford calling for four tires, fuel and a track bar adjustment to in hopes of chasing down Busch and Johnson – the main rivals all afternoon. A long green-flag run ensued with Hamlin chasing Johnson for the second spot. On lap 300 Hamlin took over the runner-up spot from Johnson and set his sights on Busch and on lap 317 Hamlin moved to the point, dicing through lapped traffic to take the lead from his JGR teammate.
Hamlin’s lead would be short-lived, however, as the yellow came out on lap 319 and he pitted from the lead on lap 321 for four tires, fuel and a track-bar adjustment. Jimmie Johnson beat Hamlin out of the pits to retake the lead with Hamlin lined up in second.
Hamlin continued to run second to Johnson until lap 359 when JGR teammate Kyle Busch assumed the second spot. With 100 laps remaining in the Food City 500 Hamlin was in third place, 1.8 seconds behind then-leader Jimmie Johnson.
The FedEx Express team rose to the occasion on the final pit stop of the afternoon as Hamlin pulled onto pit road on lap 444. Hamlin came in third and pulled out in second –right behind teammate Kyle Busch – and it was a position he would hold for the remainder of the race.
On lap 495 a small window of opportunity opened for Hamlin to make one last charge for the win when Joey Logano experienced engine problems and brought out the final yellow of the day to set up a green-white-checkered finish. However Busch was very strong on the restart and Hamlin was forced to hold off a charging Jimmie Johnson to take second.
