CUP: Hamlin Wants JGR Back Up Front

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hamlin Wants JGR Back Up Front

Denny Hamlin has been the best performer among the three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas this season...

Rick Minter | http://www.RacinToday.com | Posted July 30, 2009

Joe Gibbs (Left) has staked a claim for his team to be the best in class in Sprint Cup, or at least that’s the way Denny Hamlin (Right) sized it up. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Joe Gibbs Racing has staked a claim to best in class in Sprint Cup, or at least that’s the way Denny Hamlin sized it up on this week’s NASCAR teleconference.

Hamlin said the three-team JGR outfit is the best of the non-Hendrick or Hendrick-affiliated teams.

“Week in, week out, it’s a Hendrick car winning one way, shape or form,” Hamlin said. “Pretty much they’re taking all the top five spots, to be honest with you.”

But he said all is not lost at mid-season.

“We feel like we’ve got a tall mountain to climb, but we’re almost there,” he said. “I feel like we’re three-quarters of the way there right now. I feel like we’re the closest competitors to those guys on a weekly basis.”

Hendrick indeed has been dominant of late. Hendrick or Hendrick-affiliated drivers have won 11 of the past 15 Cup races, and two of the ones they lost were won by Joey Logano (Loudon) and David Reutimann (Charlotte) who scored unlikely wins when rains ended those races early.

Hamlin said that one key clue to the overall success of the Hendrick effort is the contributions of the Stewart-Haas Racing team, which uses Hendrick engines, chassis and technology.

“Really I think it’s the satellite teams,” he said. “They made their satellite team better in Stewart-Haas. Ultimately they’re getting better feedback.

“I can almost guarantee you they used zero notes from the 66 and 70 from last year or previous years. But now we hear on the radio the 14 (Tony Stewart) struggles or the 39 (Ryan Newman) struggles, they just say over the radio, ‘Hey, go get the notes from the 5 (Mark Martin), find out what he’s running.’

“That is big.”

A lot bigger than what Hamlin has to draw from.

“All I have is Joey (Logano) and Kyle (Busch) to kind of lean on,” he said. “Our setups are basically driver-tuned and whatnot. But it seems like whatever they have over there, it’s working for them everywhere, whether it be a front end setting or how they have their spring combination, something like that.”

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Rick Minter

RacinToday.com

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