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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Kansas A Crucial Race For Hamlin
Denny Hamlin is sixth in points, 108 back of Mark Martin...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 03, 2009   Kansas City, KS
Denny Hamlin is sixth in points in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as he heads into the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods at the Kansas Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

All along, Denny Hamlin has insisted that whether or not he can win the 2009 Sprint Cup championship will depend on how he does in the first three races.

Make it through New Hampshire, Dover and Kansas in close proximity of the leaders, and Hamlin figured his chances of winning were as good as anyone’s. Fall behind, and he’d be toast.

“The first three races for us makes or breaks our ‘Chase’ every year,” Hamlin said recently. “People argue that there’s no one race that means more than another – that ain’t true. For us, it’s the first three. If we stumble in those first three we never make it up – we never do. We never come from behind. Our 2006 year when we were only 60 points out from the championship, it was because we were there right from the beginning. We ran well at Loudon, ran well at Dover and it just set us up for the rest of the year. It’s just that momentum builds.”

This year’s first two Chase races have been a mixed bag for Hamlin, which in turn makes Sunday’s Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway pretty much a make-it-or-break-it race for the Virginia native.

Hamlin comes into the Kansas race sixth in points, 108 back of leader Mark Martin following finishes of second in New Hampshire and 22nd at Dover. Coincidentally, Hamlin was second in Saturday’s first practice at Kansas, after qualifying 22nd on Friday.

There’s no mystery about what needs to happen for him on Sunday — finish ahead of points leaders Martin and Johnson and their so-far dominant Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.

“We’re going to keep riding like we have and those guys aren’t going to finish one-two every single week,” said Hamlin. “There’s going to be opportunities for us to gain on them. We just have to make sure we capitalize when that door opens.”

That said, he admitted that the poor Dover finish was discouraging. “Anytime you finish where we did at Dover, you’re confidence is not going to be near what it was,” Hamlin said flatly. “ … I think it looks crappy now, to where we’re a little bit further behind than what we were, we lost 65 or 70 points last week, but we’re just going to chip away at it.”


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