CUP: ‘Stepping Lightly’ Working For Hamlin

Sprint Cup

CUP: ‘Stepping Lightly’ Working For Hamlin

Denny Hamlin has a plan to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship...

Mike Hembree | Posted October 19, 2010 Charlotte, NC

41 points separates Denny Hamlin from four time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion Jimmie Johnson. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

With his first Sprint Cup championship within reaching distance, Denny Hamlin is racing conservatively.

Then again, he’s not racing conservatively.

Huh?

The two items are not mutually exclusive, it turns out.

Hamlin, who is second – 41 points back – to point leader Jimmie Johnson entering Sunday’s Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, has danced delicately through the first half of the Chase. He hasn’t been afraid to race – his performances have been good, but he has taken extra care on restarts so as not to become clogged in the middle of the fury that often defines the relatively new double-file version of that activity.

Hamlin’s point – and it’s well-taken – is that he’d rather lose five, 10 or 15 points by not wrestling for a position or two in a crowded restart rather than crash in the logjam and drop 100.

The strategy has served him well.

“What I’ve been calling conservative is being conservative on restarts and not putting myself in bad situations,” Hamlin said Tuesday. “I’m pushing my car hard every single lap. But you minimize risk on restarts by not putting yourself in bad situations.

“We could very easily have the point lead right now … but a few little things have happened on restarts that have kept us from getting 10 to 15 points here and there. It’s just me being cautious to be sure I don’t give up 100.”

Hamlin has heard the talk that he’s not running aggressively enough, but he sees his second-place position as proof that his strategy is working.

“I’ve been catching a lot of flak on how conservatively or whatever I’ve been in the Chase,” he said. “It works for me. Anyone can run the Chase however they want to. It works for me, and when I feel like I need to go, I’ll go.”

That could happen Sunday. Hamlin seems perfectly in tune for Martinsville, where he’s won six times, including a brilliant and daring end-of-the-race run to win in March this year. That race was not an example, decidedly, of Hamlin racing conservatively.

“I had just gotten tires, and everyone was really struggling in front of me,” he said of the late-race scenario. “I stuck it three-wide a couple of times where normally I wouldn’t have.

“At Martinsville, you can use your race car a little more. You can get the fenders and doors knocked in and still be competitive. We’ll see how things go this week. With four or five [laps] to go, I’ll just have to look at where the 48 [Johnson} and 29 [Kevin Harvick] are and base how aggressive I am on that.”

Denny Hamlin (Left) trails Jimmie Johnson (Right) in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings.

Hamlin’s general plan is to stay close to Johnson through next week’s Halloween race at Talladega and then gun for the big money over the season’s closing three races.

“I’m happy with where we are,” he said. “I feel like I am within striking distance. Talladega is such a wild card in the sense that it can go 100 points one way or another. We just hope to close the gap once we leave Martinsville. Then I’ll just keep him [Johnson] right in front of me for the entire Talladega race.

“If I’m in a wreck, I’m going to make sure he’s in it, as well.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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