Denny Hamlin, driver of the No.11 Fed Ex Toyota, who has been racing the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series since 2006 for Joe Gibbs Racing, came into this year without a Daytona 500 victory or road course race victory. He crossed the Daytona 500 off his to do list earlier this season, and after Sunday, he can also cross off a road course win as well.
After taking the lead on a late race restart, he took the checkered flag first at the end of the Cheez-It 355 at the Glen at Watkins Glen International Raceway. To say the 2006 NASCAR Rookie of the year is happy and excited is an understatement as he even blew out his tires and messed up his quarter panel on the car doing his celebratory burn out.
“It was a great day, obviously, on the racetrack,” Hamlin said. “It was an eventful race but uneventful race for us. We executed perfectly. Didn’t make any mistakes on pit road. Pit crew did great. We had a great strategy there at the end. Made a great call to stay out, hoping for those caution laps that we needed, knowing that the trend was we were going to get those caution laps. That allowed us to make it on fuel.
“There at the end, we really just executed on our restarts. That’s been key. You got to get through the first couple corners on restarts. Really for us, those two guys were going for it. They slipped up and opened up a door for us to go through there and win.”
The American driver credits his strong restarts to the win as when the race resumed with 10 laps to go, Hamlin restarted the race in fourth position. However, as soon as the race went green again he quickly jumped to the lead.
“I mean, I got a really good restart on the 2 (Brad Keselowski),” Hamlin quoted. “I was in third position. Kyle (Busch) was outside in second. Brad was leading. Really I got a good jump to where I was able to stay right on the 2’s bumper entering the corner. Then I saw the 18 lunge forward. He didn’t let off until he made sure that Brad did. Made Brad drive in there deeper to not let the 18 clear him.
“By doing that I knew I entered the corner as fast as I could enter. When I saw them move forward and lunge into the corner, I knew there was no way for them to get out with any sensible speed. It was my opportunity when they slid up the racetrack to execute, and we came through.”
The Chesterfield, Virginia native says luck played a key in the win as well, He saying because he pitted later than everyone else, that he missed all the errors and such that happened on pit lane. He also says his crew chief Mike Wheeler and spotter helped key him in and he backed down an extra light or two to make sure he didn’t make a mistake on pit road like he has other times this season.
“I knew that it’s very hard to win these races if you make any mistakes,” Hamlin stated. “I only made one mistake at Sonoma, and it was in the final corner, and I didn’t win. So really was a great day of execution overall, whether it be pit lane, restarts, everything on the track. I think I missed one corner into turn one one time, other than that a pretty flawless race for us.”
The father of one showed us at Sonoma Raceway he was strong at road courses, given he almost won that race; however because of a mistake he made he ended up in the runner up spot. Hamlin was darn sure not going to let that happen again, making sure he had a flawless day and the results show that.
“Yeah, I think it wasn’t a fluke is the biggest thing,” Hamlin said. “Sometimes you see guys run up front in a road course. You’re like, Where did it come from? It happens once. But I really think that we’ve turned the corner really with all of our Toyota teams. I know two of my teammates tested up here and had a good test. We used their baseline setup when we got here.
“We had speed right from the get-go. With Furniture Row and Gibbs, we got something that’s working well for us. We’re all working extremely well together. It’s lending itself to on-track success. When you have multiple cars with speed like we do, when one makes a mistake, there’s another one there to pick up the pieces. We were there to pick up the pieces today.”
The 2016 Daytona 500 winner has been having some issues with his back, suffering from spasms. He says it comes and goes sporadically; however, he says it has never caused him any issues on race day until today, but still he got into the car and drove his heart out.
“Really, I haven’t had back problems in the past four to five years,” Hamlin added. “It’s all subsided pretty well. I’ve got a pretty good routine that I do during the week that helps with that. But just today, you know, slept wrong, something. Woke up and knew I was in pretty big trouble. We worked on it all day to try to make it better. We really didn’t make it much better. But, yeah, no doubt if it was Friday or Saturday, no question I wouldn’t have turned one lap today.
“It was by far the worst conditions I’ve ever had to drive in, over the knees, anything else. This was by far the worst pain-wise I’ve had to go through.It didn’t get any better throughout the day. Trust me, I’m sitting there, even though I’m joyed that we’re leading the race, I was thinking under the red flag, ‘Let’s get this over with so I can get out of this car’. I don’t know why it did it today.
“But I’ll just continue to go to work on it and try to get in the gym and try to make things a little bit better overall. I have missed my routine because I’ve had to travel over the last few weeks. I kind of got off sequence of my routine that’s helped my back. It will go away. By Tuesday I’ll be back fine again. It’s just a pain right now.”