Four Wide: It’s go time for Denny Hamlin (Yahoo! Sports)
September 10, 2010
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RICHMOND, Va. – It’s not been a great week for Denny Hamlin, who went from first to last at Atlanta when a blown motor caused the pole-sitter to finish 43rd.
Now, the popular preseason pick to win the championship goes into Saturday night’s race at Richmond International Raceway in a serious slump that has many questioning his qualifications as a title contender. If his recent run of poor finishes wasn’t enough to raise concern – he’s finished 34th and 43rd the last two weeks – Hamlin was ill Wednesday and didn’t make a scheduled appearance for New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
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It’s a far cry from where Hamlin was this time last year, when the Virginia native’s breakthrough victory at his home track pushed him into the Sprint Cup Series spotlight as a serious threat to win the championship. The momentum and confidence Hamlin gained from last September’s win at Richmond literally changed the driver in a way that made him more comfortable as a star.
Although he fell short in his bid to dethrone Jimmie Johnson, he took major steps toward vying for a championship. It carried over into this season, when he rebounded from a torn knee ligament in January and subsequent surgery to win five of 10 races from March to June.
Denny Hamlin led 74 laps at Atlanta before suffering a blown engine.Getty
It’s been a rough road since then, though. Hamlin has just three top-10 finishes in the 10 races since his last win, and is coming off a 34th-place finish at Bristol and Sunday’s night’s blown motor.
“Definitely looking to put Atlanta and Bristol behind us and focusing on this weekend in Richmond and then on to the next 10,” Hamlin said. “The silver lining is that we had a really good car last weekend in Atlanta, from the first lap after we unloaded we had the best car and that’s something to be proud of. Unfortunately, without finishing, all that work doesn’t mean a whole lot so we come to Richmond knowing that we need to be good, but we need to finish and the reliability has to be there.
“I expect we’ll show our best this weekend.”
He better, or else his chances of winning his first career title will be slim, at best.
Johnson has proven the last four years that his competitors must be close to perfect to beat him, and with so little room for error, a driver simply can’t afford a slow start to the Chase. The numbers will of course show that drivers can and do rebound from a rough Chase opener. But since Johnson’s run began in 2006, nobody has been able to put together a strong enough string of 10 races.
Hamlin vowed last week to treat the final two races of the “regular season” as tune-ups for the Chase, and every early indication last Sunday night was that his Joe Gibbs Racing team had backed him up by preparing a stout No. 11 Toyota. Reliability is, of course, a major factor, and the motor simply didn’t hold. That’s not Hamlin’s fault, but it’s something that’s got to be fixed ASAP.
Anyone paying attention saw the clear shift in Hamlin following last year’s Richmond win, when a flip was switched from pretender to contender. If he doesn’t get his act together immediately, all that work in building a title-run will be for nothing.
What’s going on at Richmond:
1. Saturday night could be an outstanding race:
With 10 Chase spots already settled, there’s no real drama surrounding the final race before the Chase. It would take something close to a natural disaster for Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer not to lock up the final two slots, so there’s no reason for anyone to be timid Saturday night.
Clint Bowyer will clinch a spot in the Chase if he finishes 28th or better at Richmond.Getty
There are 10 bonus points dangling, boys, and somebody needs to go grab them.
This is one of those rare races in which there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. So what if series points leader Kevin Harvick wrecks on the first lap? It won’t change much in terms of what happens next week, when the Chase begins.
But if a Chase driver wins Saturday night, well, that changes a lot. Those 10 bonus points that come with a win are used in seeding the Chase field, so somebody would get a boost there. Then there’s the momentum that comes from winning the last race before the Chase. A driver can carry that into New Hampshire next week and charge out of the gates.
So it’s a conundrum of sorts for Saturday night in how each driver approaches the race.
“I really think you race for wins regardless if you are locked in the Chase or you have points, no points, you really go and do the same things you would do on a normal basis,” Harvick said. “The only way you would race different is if you are racing for 12th. You take zero chances. Anything other than that, I think everybody is trying to race the same way and that’s to win the race and if not, take the most points out of the weekend that you can.”
2. What to watch for in the race to claim the final two spots:
With only spots 11 and 12 up for grabs in the Chase field, there’s still not a ton of drama surrounding Saturday night.
Greg Biffle, the 11th-place driver, needs only to finish 42nd or better to lock down his spot. And if he leads even one lap, it doesn’t matter where he finishes, he’ll still earn his Chase berth.
Clint Bowyer is in 12th-place and has a 117-point cushion over Ryan Newman in 13th. Bowyer has several scenarios that can get him in, but is a lock if he simply finishes 28th or better. If he leads a lap, he needs only to finish 29th or better and if he leads the most laps, the number drops to 31st.
“With a 117-point lead, that’s a pretty good pad,” Bowyer said. “With any luck at all we’ll be in this thing. And if we’re not, then I’ll just say it wasn’t meant to be.”
Richmond is fortunately one of Bowyer’s best tracks, and he’s got a win and seven finishes of 12th or better. His worst finish was 18th a year ago in the spring race. So things are looking good for Bowyer.
3. Red Bull Racing has nothing to lose with Mattias Ekstrom:
But what exactly is there to gain?
Mattias Ekstrom will make his second Cup start at Richmond. He finished 21st at Infineon Raceway earlier this season.Getty
Ekstrom will make his second Sprint Cup Series start Saturday night at Richmond, a peculiar track choice for a driver with so little NASCAR experience. He drove the No. 83 at Sonoma, where he led seven laps and finished 21st, and that was just fine.
But it’s curious to see the team using him again in the Cup Series – he’s sitting in for Reed Sorenson – and expect success. Recent history has shown over and over that drivers from other series simply cannot slide into a Cup car and be successful. And Red Bull knows this firsthand through both AJ Allmendinger, who came from open-wheel but was let go after two seasons, and now Scott Speed, who has been inconsistent in his development since moving from Formula One.
Juan Pablo Montoya still remains the exception to the rule, and he’s only got two career Cup wins and will miss the Chase this season.
The proper way to bring a driver from a different discipline into NASCAR is with a gradual program that gives him experience at various levels (see Danica Patrick), and pushing Ekstrom into a big-time race with so little experience is a questionable call for both the driver and Red Bull’s long-term plans.
Brian Vickers says his he’ll be back in the car next season, and Kasey Kahne is signed for a one-year contract. If Red Bull wants Ekstrom to replace Kahne in 2012, that’s fine, prepare him for the move. But don’t push him into something now that could blow up on everyone.
4. Daytona International Speedway will give an update on its paving project:
New track president Joie Chitwood will be at Richmond this weekend discussing what’s going on at NASCAR’s most historic race track.
Chitwood was given his new job in the middle of a monster paving project at the speedway, which was plagued with potholes in this year’s Daytona 500, and a difficult economic climate that is hurting ticket sales everywhere, including NASCAR’s version of the Super Bowl.
So Chitwood, on the job less than a month, has had to hit the ground running.
“Like every other sports property, we are challenged by our fans ability to enjoy sporting events and we’ve got to make sure this property is relevant to them when they make those decisions,” Chitwood said. “The Daytona 500 needs to be on the bucket list of a fan’s desire to do something special. And we hope to make sure that fans, when they think about racing, this is the birth place of NASCAR and Daytona is one of the places you should experience if you are a fan of sports in general.”
The paving project, by the way, is on schedule to be completed in early January, and NASCAR will likely open the track to teams for a smaller version of preseason testing that will give a baseline of notes on the new surface.
Jenna Fryer covers NASCAR for The Associated Press and is a regular contributor to Yahoo! Sports. Follow her on Twitter. Send Jenna a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
