Notebook: Hamlin close to last year but needs solid finish

Notebook: Hamlin close to last year but needs solid finish


By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(April 8, 2011)

FORT WORTH, Texas—Denny Hamlin isn’t ready to push the panic button, but his psyche is moving ever so slightly in that direction.
After winning eight races and posting 18 top-10 finishes in 36 races last year, Hamlin has no victories and one top 10 through six races in 2011. Not to worry, Hamlin said Friday. He didn’t catch fire until five races had passed last season, but he did win at Martinsville in his sixth start.
Fortunately for Hamlin, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team is competing this weekend at Texas, where Hamlin swept both Sprint Cup races last year.
“I’m pretty sure we’re going to run well,” said Hamlin, who is 19th in the Cup standings and qualified 23rd Friday for Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. “Finishing well is the part that we haven’t done as well this year as we’ve done in years past. It’s so early and we are close to where we are last year. We’re not quite, because we won Martinsville last year at this point.
“For me, the panic level is not that high, but it is creeping there, because, ultimately, it’s not about the number of points that you’re behind 10th at this point, it’s how many guys separate you from that. In my head, I know that we’re going to run well. I know that for a fact. It’s just whether we finish well is going to be the question mark.”

Earnhardt took the high road at Martinsville
Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried to bump Kevin Harvick’s Chevrolet late in last Sunday’s race, but he didn’t want to cross the line and wreck Harvick—even with the race on the line.
Harvick had passed Earnhardt for the lead on Lap 497 of 500, and Earnhardt had one chance to get to Harvick’s bumper when he tried a crossover move immediately after losing the top spot. The temptation to knock Harvick into the fence must have been hard to resist—given that Earnhardt hadn’t won since June 2008—but Earnhardt took the high road.
Interestingly, damage to the rear of Harvick’s car, sustained on a restart, made Earnhardt’s bump less effective.
“I didn’t want to take him out under any circumstances,” Earnhardt said Friday. “I don’t take out drivers or wreck people on purpose. I wanted to race him hard and I tried to get into him, but he didn’t even have much of a bumper to get into, you know? So when I ran into him, it was like a pillow fight. There wasn’t much to it. He just drove off the nose of my car and went about his way.
“Everybody knows how I race. I try to race respectful, and I want the same in return. And if it’s near the end of the race, I expect to run hard and be aggressive; I expect the guys to race me hard and be aggressive. And I think that’s kind of what went down this past weekend.”

John Force gets one-upped by race fan
Never at a loss for words, drag racing legend John Force treated guests to a 20-minute ad lib Thursday night during his induction into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame.
The 15-time NHRA Funny Car champion related a story from earlier in the evening, when a fan asked Force to pose for a photo. The fan asked Force to take off his sunglasses for the shot.
“Would you ask Richard Petty to take his shades off?” Force asked.
“You’re not Richard Petty,” the fan replied.
Force took the sunglasses off and posed for the photo.

Edwards can’t hide from crop dusters in Texas
Carl Edwards has a nickname: “Downwind.” Who knew?
Unbeknownst to the racing fraternity, Edwards acquired that moniker in his early days as a pilot, when he landed in the wrong direction during a fuel stop in a small town in the Texas panhandle.
“I was flying a little Saratoga,” Edwards said Friday. “I got my pilot’s license, and it was my first plane and I flew it all over the country. This little thing was great. I landed for fuel in Dimmitt, Texas, and that looked like a good place to land on the map, and I didn’t think to check the windsock, so I landed downwind.
“I am landing at 60-80 mph plus 20 mph wind, and I am screaming down this runway trying to stop, and I get to the end and there is a guy ready to take off in the correct direction. I can see him look at me like, ‘You idiot.’
“It was great. I bought this plane and didn’t know what color it was when I bought it and it was pink. They call it magenta or something but it was purplish pink, and so here comes this idiot in this plane, and he is looking at me like, ‘Now what are you going to do, moron? You have to turn around because I can’t back up.’
“So I turn around and taxi back in and beg these people for some fuel and they are like, ‘You’re NASCAR driver Carl Edwards!’ So all along I’m thinking the only guy that saw that landing was this one guy.
“Like a year later I was doing an autograph session here at Texas, and I hear from the crowd, ‘Hey Downwind!’ and I think ‘Oh, man he knows. Somebody knows’. He was like, ‘I was that guy in that crop duster. You are a terrible pilot!’
“It was pretty funny. I’m sure in the crop duster community around here they laugh at me as a pilot. They call me Downwind.”