Hamlin, Johnson vie again for Martinsville ownership rights

Hamlin, Johnson vie again for Martinsville ownership rights

Some people are looking forward to Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway because numbers and history both say it shapes up to be a fistfight between the two drivers who are the top contenders for this year's championship.
Denny Hamlin is one of those people—and he's also one of those contenders.
Asked this week if he viewed Sunday's Tums Fast Relief 500 as a kind of heavyweight bout between himself and points leader Jimmie Johnson, Hamlin said, "Well, people would think so, and I would think so."
With five races left in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, there are only two drivers within 150 points of Johnson: Hamlin, who 41 points back in second, and Kevin Harvick, who is 77 back in third.
ut what makes Sunday's race so intriguing, and what pushes Harvick out of the middle of the frame, is the fact that the two dudes ahead of him can both make legitimate claims of being the current owners of the Martinsville short track.
With six victories at the series' shortest track (.526 miles), Johnson may have the ownership edge. He won three in a row there in 2006 and '07. His average finish in 17 starts is 5.4.
But the other claimant, Hamlin, is challenging. He has three victories in 10 starts. He won the Tums a year ago and he won the spring race this year at the track called "The Paperclip" because of its oblong shape.
The native of Chesterfield , Va. has an average finish of 6.6 at one of the two tracks he considers home tracks ( Richmond is the other).
Hamlin will begin his quest for winning three in a row at Martinsville with considerable confidence and a brand new Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
"I'm looking forward to it, obviously. We've just had a lot of great success at Martinsville Speedway," Hamlin said. "The only bad finish we've ever had there was my rookie season. We had a DNF. So we go there with a great outlook."
So great is that outlook that Hamlin said he is content being behind Johnson in the standings right now.
"I'm not nervous at all going into Martinsville ," he said. "For me, I would be more nervous if I was the 48 car (Johnson) going into Martinsville than I would if I was myself because we won the last two races there. He didn't have the spring race he was hoping for."
Johnson started third and finished ninth in that spring race. He failed to lead a lap for the first time in his previous nine races.
And Hamlin, well, he mixed it up but good. He rubbed and bumped and stuck the nose of his car into some tight places over the final laps to get the victory.
Look for more of the same Sunday, he said.
"We are going out there to be on the offense," Hamlin said. "He's (Johnson) going to try to go out there and win the race as well. But for me, he's going to have to beat us to do it. It's going to take a lot to beat us there."
And look for more of the same, he said, even if it's on a green/white/checkered restart and he lines up door-to-door with Johnson.
"I feel like if it is mano a mano," he said, "we've been in a lot of green and white checkers where we've been on the front row together, so it should be interesting."

Tums Fast Relief 500
When: Sunday, 1:15 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN, 1 p.m. ET (prerace starts at noon on ESPN2)
Radio: MRN/Sirius Satellite Ch. 128
Race distance: 500 laps/263 miles
Estimated pit window: 140-150 laps
Qualifying: Friday, 3:10 p.m. ET
Track layout: .526-mile oval
2009 winner: Denny Hamlin
2009 polesitter: Ryan Newman
Points standings: 1. Jimmie Johnson, 5,843; 2. Denny Hamlin, 5,802; 3. Kevin Harvick, 5,766; 4. Jeff Gordon, 5,687; 5. Kyle Busch, 5,666; 6. Tony Stewart, 5,666; 7. Carl Edwards, 5,643; 8. Greg Biffle, 5,618; 9. Kurt Busch, 5,606; 10. Jeff Burton, 5,604; 11. Matt Kenseth, 5,587; 12. Clint Bowyer, 5,543.
By Jim Pedley

Special to Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service