By Jim Pedley
Special to Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(August 4, 2011)
A couple days before last weekend's Sprint Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Chase-iffy driver Denny Hamlin said he and his team had seven more weeks to hone themselves into a playoff-caliber team.
That number is now down to six and, thanks to a disappointing Brickyard 400 finish, Hamlin and his Joe Gibbs Racing team are now more Chase-iffy than they were a week ago.
There is good news, however, and that is that this weekend, the Cup series rolls into what has been an iron-clad Hamlin stronghold—Pocono Raceway, for the Good Sam RV Insurance 500.
"It's just one of those racetracks I've got a really, really good feel for honestly," Hamlin, a four-time winner at the 2.5-mile Pocono triangle, said. "There are not too many tracks where you feel like when you pull in you just can't do no wrong, but that's kind of one of the places."
Thank goodness.
Hamlin today is 11th in points. He is 19 points out of 10th in a year in which just the top 10 drivers will get Chase berths based upon points. Hamlin has one victory—that at Michigan in June—but three other drivers (Paul Menard, David Ragan and Brad Keselowski) have realistic wild-card hopes by having victories of their own, so a wild-card berth for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is anything but assured.
Tough to believe for a driver and team who came within one race—he led the points standings heading into the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway—of dethroning Jimmie Johnson and winning last year's championship.
"Last year at this point we were winning races one out of three or four races or so and you really can't get any better, but we were able to maintain it in the Chase," Hamlin said.
But this season, a season in which some had predicted that Hamlin would take another swing at five-time champ Johnson, has been a bummer.
The driver who led the series with eight victories and had 14 top-five finishes has been devoid of the impressive consistency he showed in 2010. Through 20 races this year, Hamlin has just four top-fives. He has been a victim of mechanical problems and just plain average finishes.
Great time, he said, to be racing at Pocono, where he has the best average starting position (5.9) and best finishing position (9.2) among all active drivers.
"Honestly," Hamlin said, "we feel like we should've won twice as many races there as what we have even though we've won a lot. It's just every time we go there we're in position to win the race just about every time. Fuel or things like that doesn't always help you complete the job, but we've had the fastest car there probably 80 percent of the time."
Hamlin finished 19th at Pocono earlier this season, but led four times for a race-best 76 laps. Clearly, the new rule which allows for shifting of gears at Pocono had little effect on Hamlin.
"I don't think it changed that much for me," Hamlin said of the gearing change. "There were times during the race that I was shifting and times when I wasn't, just depending on what kind of mode I was in."
And after Pocono, and before the Chase begins at Chicagoland Speedway in mid-September, there are a couple of other races at places where Hamlin also thrives. Like Michigan in two weeks, where Hamlin has two victories.
What: Good Sam RV Insurance 500
Where: Pocono Raceway; Long Pond, Pa.
When: Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN, Noon ET
Radio: MRN-Sirius/XM Satellite Ch. 90
Track layout: 2.5-mile triangle
Race distance: 200 laps/500 miles
Qualifying: Saturday, 10:40 a.m. ET
2010 winner: Greg Biffle
2010 polesitter: Tony Stewart
Points standings: 1. Carl Edwards, 682; 2. Jimmie Johnson, 671; 3. Kevin Harvick, 670; 4. Kyle Busch, 666; 5. Matt Kenseth, 666; 6. Kurt Busch, 664; 7. Jeff Gordon, 630; 8. Ryan Newman, 618; 9. Tony Stewart 609, 505; 10. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 606.
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