CUP: Hamlin’s Chase Hopes Roar Back To Life

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hamlin’s Chase Hopes Roar Back To Life

Denny Hamlin will start from the pole in Sunday’s Pepsi 500...

Tom Jensen | Posted October 10, 2009 Fontana, CA

At Auto Club Speedway on Friday Denny Hamlin qualified on the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Pepsi 500. (Photo: Getty Images)

It took Denny Hamlin two races to dig himself a big hole in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and just five days to climb back out.

Hamlin’s Chase got off to a disappointing start, when his second-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was followed with a 22nd at Dover International Speedway. That dropped the Virginia native all the way back to sixth in points, 108 behind leader Mark Martin.

But last Sunday Hamlin finished fifth in the Price Chopper 500 at Kansas Speedway, a result that brought his deficit to Martin back under 100 points.

And on Friday at Auto Club Speedway, Hamlin put his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the pole for Sunday’s Pepsi 500. Reports of Hamlin’s demise in the Chase indeed appear to be exaggerated.

Clearly, Hamlin’s seventh career Sprint Cup pole and first of 2009 was delivered at a point in the season when it was most welcome.

“It definitely comes at a good time,” said Hamlin, who has made the Chase in each of his four full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup seasons. “We like to keep streaks alive for sure and one is to have a pole each year and we know we’re obviously going to keep that alive.”

Hamlin was especially pleased with the pole because qualifying is an area where the JGR team has struggled this season. Coming into the ACS weekend, Hamlin has qualified outside the top 10 a total of 16 times in 29 races, not a good statistic, to be sure.

“Qualifying has been so bad for us during the course of the season,” said Hamlin. “We picked it up a little bit in the last two months. For the most part on our Friday if we end up 15th, we’re pretty happy. This is out of the blue for us, but I think we’re starting to learn so much about our mile-and-a-half and two-mile program that I’m confident the next one we go to, I think Charlotte, I’m pretty confident that we’re going to have another car that can contend.”

Starting up front on Sunday will have plenty of benefits for Hamlin — no dirty air to contend with, no backmarkers to avoid and the ability to lead a lap at the start and pick up some bonus points.

“It’ll be important to get five points, more so than to be up front early,” said Hamlin. “For myself, I typically had to come from the back here at this race track. What advantage I’ll have is to get a better gauge of my car early in the race. Usually, our race weekends end up happening where we qualified 20th to 30th and we get to the top-five with about 100 laps to go.

“Then, we start adjusting our race car to try to win the race,” said Hamlin. “By starting up front, you get more adjustments in to try to fine tune your car and I think that’s a lot of times why you see the guys that qualify up front will finish up front because they get more opportunities to refine their car for the dash at the end.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief 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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