Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Martinsville Speedway is arguably Denny Hamlin’s best track on the NASCAR circuit. So it’s no secret that he was looking forward to this weekend’s race.
“The last 10 days or so I’ve really been itching about getting back because this is such a fun race for me and obviously we have a lot of high expectations,” he stated. “I come here, it’s very similar to when I was racing go-karts back in the day, like all the WKA Nationals would come to my home track and I was like, ‘OK, I have a chance to beat them because I know this track,’ kind of like that. The best comes to town and it just feels like I race here every week. Even my first lap here on the track here, it feels like I’ve run a million laps here.”
Hamlin knows what it takes to get to victory lane at the paperclip, having scored five victories, 11 top-fives and 16 top-10s in his previous 20 trips. He also knows that he will have a good Toyota underneath him this weekend, based on how strong Joe Gibbs Racing has been thus far this season. Hamlin started the year on a high, winning the Daytona 500. He struggled through the next couple of events, but has posted a pair of top-three finishes back-to-back.
Hamlin admitted in the media center that he is hungry for a win, and stated that if he doesn’t win two of the next six races, he’ll probably be disappointed in himself. The driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota feels he will be successful as him and crew chief Mike Wheeler are finally getting in the groove of things. This marks Wheeler’s first year crew chefing for Hamlin. Wheeler spent a bunch of years as an engineer on Hamlin’s team, before crew chiefing an XFINITY effort last season. He returned to the Cup side to work with Hamlin, per the driver’s recommendation to their relationship.
“Even though we’ve worked together for a really long time, we’re starting to get really on the same page and getting the cars like I like to drive them,” he commented. “I’m pretty optimistic for obvious reasons and I look at this point in the schedule as let’s take advantage of getting some wins and getting some bonus points for the first round.”
With the confidence on his side, he knows that he can get the job done. Though he also understands that he is his own worst enemy when it comes to this weekend.
Hamlin has put himself in position to win over the past couple of years, but pit road speeding penalties have kept him from victory lane on multiple occasions. He also states that he doesn’t know why he chooses to push it on pit road, either, given the amount of speed that he has in the car.
“I think I’ve had two in the last bunch of races, just consecutively,” he noted. “That’s been a challenge and last year in the fall race I beat up my car pretty good trying to come back through the pack the second time or maybe it was the first time I had a penalty. I think it’s me just being a little more cautious on pit road and making sure that I’ve got a car that can finish the race with all four fenders.”
He added that part of the problem is trying to work the time lines to his favor. NASCAR tells whether someone is speeding based on how long they spend between a pair of lines, in multiple segments throughout pit road. Drivers whom are pitting at the beginning of a segment will complete their pit stop and speed till the end of it, before slowing down as they reach the next one. Due to their pit stop being in the midst of that, it sets their segment time below the bar. However, there are times where drivers overshoot that window and speed in the next segment.
“You can get a bunch, but you can also lose a bunch of you mess up and speed like I have,” he noted. “I think that really qualifying good has hurt us, it’s put us in position to give us the option to go for it on pit road at times when probably backing off would have been smarter.”
Hamlin says speeding on pit road or making any bonehead move of any kind will keep you from winning. It’s why he hopes to escape making those mistakes this weekend.
