CUP: Hamlin Not Panicking

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hamlin Not Panicking

Denny Hamlin say he isn't concerned about his team's slow start in 2010...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted March 22, 2010 Bristol, TN

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch (Left) and Denny Hamlim (Right) have flourished since the return of the spoiler in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. (Photo: Getty Images)

Denny Hamlin doesn’t know whether to feel angry or frustrated over his start to the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. He doesn't know if other teams have leapfrogged his Joe Gibbs Racing team or whether his team has taken a step backward.

What he does know is the way his team ran at Atlanta, where he finished 21st but led 32 laps and ran well until a couple of tire issues ruined his day, is the way he expects to see his team perform on a consistent basis in 2010.

The driver everyone talked about as the top challenger for series champion Jimmie Johnson hasn’t had a great start to the season. And it hasn’t been awful. It’s been just kinda there. Hamlin's had finishes of 17th, 29th, 19th and 21st through the season's first four races, ans sits 22nd in the point standings.

While he’s only 73 points out of 12th, Hamlin and his team certainly doesn’t look like the same verge-of-a-championship group that won three of the final 11 races last year.

“[Atlanta] was a good gauge,” Hamlin said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he will roll off 15th in the Food City 500. “We had pretty much the same car as last year. The setup was a little different and I feel like me and [crew chief] Mike [Ford] got back on the same page last week at Atlanta. That was the potential of where we should be running. We had a chance to win, at worst we were going to be a third- or fourth-place car.

“Right now, I’d say that’s where we belong. Until we bring better cars to the race track, that’s where I would be happy with running right now. I’d say guys have gotten better, but it’s trying to maintain that the whole season is very tough.”

So is he frustrated? Or content?

“I’m really nothing right now to be honest with you,” Hamlin said. “There’s no real – it’s frustrating when you don’t finish as good as you hoped, but Las Vegas we just ran terrible and we finished about where we ran. We know Atlanta at least gave us a glimpse of what we’re capable of running here.”

Hamlin expected to do well at Bristol because, well, the expectations he has were the same as everyone else entering the season.

“It’s like you’re good one week and you suck the next,” Hamlin said. “You’re the same person, the same team, it’s just some weeks you hit it and some you don’t. That’s what makes what they do over there [with Johnson] so amazing that they can hit it every single week.”

And if people want to write Hamlin off now that he hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts, that’s fine with him.

“All the hype goes away right about now,” Hamlin said. “People kind of write you off, ‘He’s not going to be as good as we thought he was.’ That’s what’s good about it. Now for the next 15 weeks we get to just work on our stuff, work on it and that’s what we did really well last year.

“I think it was 15 races ago when we started hitting it and next thing you know maybe we have someone to challenge the 48 [of Johnson] going into the Chase and hopefully this year it’s the same way. I think if anything, this year we’re going to make a bigger jump than we did last year.”

Hamlin might need every bit of that jump to challenge the sport’s elite. He said there are teams capable of making the Chase For The Sprint Cup this year and challenging for wins. He sees the rise in the Richard Childress Racing program and sees others who have improved as well.

“I’m not embarrassed about the way we’re running,” Hamlin said. “Let’s say we get out of here and Martinsville with 20-something-place finishes, I’m going to be scratching my head wondering, ‘OK, I know what I’m capable of on these short tracks, we need to get to work.’ I have no doubt performance-wise.

“Things happen. We could get in a wreck. We could blow an engine. Things could happen but I know if we’re competitive these next two weeks, it’s going to be just how it is every year when we hit our stride.”

SceneDaily.com • In The Way Nothing is more miserable for NASCAR drivers than having a slow car at Bristol