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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Chase Bio — Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin hopes to repeat his early-season success in the Chase...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted September 11, 2010   Richmond, VA
Denny Hamlin remains the NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
DENNY HAMLIN, Joe Gibbs Racing
Points position: 10th
2010 season: 5 wins, 9 top-fives, 10 top-10s
Defining moment: First place, Martinsville Speedway

In the first half of the Sprint Cup season, some folks were ready to sign the Sprint Cup championship over to Denny Hamlin.

PHOTOS: 2010 Chase Contenders - Denny Hamlin

After all, he was on a roll. He won the sixth race of the year at Martinsville to turn around his season after finishes of 17th or worse in the first five events. Two days after the win, he underwent surgery to repair a torn knee ligament he suffered while playing basketball in January.

Sprint Cup Chase Driver Bios

The knee problem slowed him the next week at Phoenix, where he struggled to a 30th-place finish, but he rallied surprisingly quickly, scoring victories at Texas, Darlington, Pocono and Michigan over the next eight races.

The Michigan win shot him to third in the point standings after he had been as low as 22nd early in the year.

But Hamlin has not seen victory lane since that mid-June day in Michigan. He finished second on the return trip to Michigan last month, but he also has had finishes of 34, 24, 37, 34 and 43 since then. The last-place run came after engine trouble last week at Atlanta, kicking Hamlin from fifth in points to 10th.

Hamlin will spring back to (or at least near) the top next week when the Chase begins, however, thanks to the 50 bonus points he’s earned from five victories.
Denny Hamlin is 10th in Sprint Cup points. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

He said he can’t allow the Atlanta failure to cloud the start of the Chase.

“You really can’t let it affect you,” he said. “I’ve let it affect me over the last few years when we have mechanical issues and things like that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is go out there and lead every lap until that happens. For me, it’s more for the guys at the shop to kind of figure out what’s going on with that.

“Unfortunately, our motor blew so bad last week that it was decimated by the time it got into the shop, so we really couldn’t diagnose what exactly had gone wrong. For me, it was our first one all year for us [and only his second DNF], so I’m going into the Chase thinking that we’re not going to have any. If we don’t, we’re going to be upfront when it really counts. If we don’t have any mechanical failures and the driver keeps his head on straight, we’ll be just fine come Homestead.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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