CUP: Hamlin Makes it a JGR 1-2

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hamlin Makes it a JGR 1-2

Denny Hamlin was close but not close enough at Bristol on Sunday.

Tom Jensen | Posted March 22, 2009 Bristol, TN

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Toyota, moved up 6 places in the Sprint Cup standings after a second place finish at Bristol. (Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)

You didn’t have to look very hard at Denny Hamlin to see the frustration on his face following Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he finished second to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch.

On the one hand, Hamlin reckoned, it was a good points day heading into Martinsville Speedway next week and a race in which he’s the defending champion. On the other hand, he was unquestionably pixilated by not being able to take off on restarts the way Busch did. That was especially evident on the race-ending green-white-checkered finish, where Busch exploded out of the gate and Hamlin never got close enough to attempt a bump and run to move Busch out of the way, something he swore he’d have done. “For sure,” Hamlin opined of his willingness to nerf Busch out of the way to win. “He’s won too much.”

And Hamlin admitted he had no clue about what he needed to best Busch, who now has two Sprint Cup victories and five overall in NASCAR’s top three divisions so far this season.

Asked what he and crew chief Mike Ford needed to work on, Hamlin said, “Figure out how to go fast. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know whether it's just setting up our cars to just qualify and that's it. I mean, because those guys qualify good. We qualify bad every week. That helps them because they get a better pit stall. There's little things that makes that team have a little bit of an advantage before the race even starts. We got to work on qualifying. We got to get our cars faster on the short runs. Just some things we have to do.”

That level of frustration probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, in identical equipment from JGR, Hamlin led just seven laps, while Busch led 378. “He's got that car,” Hamlin said of Busch. “He's got that raw speed that I just don't have for 20 laps, and it pays big dividends to that race team, especially when you get things working the way that these races work out towards the end. So that and, I mean, he's got a solid pit crew. He's got everything working for him right now, you know. Luckily we're in the same stable, so we know everything he has. If anything we need to work on, it's me.”

And at the end of it all, Hamlin grudgingly accepted his fate and a good points day that moved him from 14th to eighth in the Sprint Cup standings. “It's a positive that we come out of here,” said Hamlin. “On average we had about a second place car. I felt like we had a third place car on the short run, and a first place car on the long run. But that's just one of those things. You take today, it puts us in the Chase (for the Sprint Cup) right now. So that's a good day for us.”

PHOTO GALLERY: BRISTOL

BRISTOL NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE RESULTS

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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