Toyota NSCS Michigan Notes & Quotes – Denny Hamlin

TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Denny Hamlin — Notes & Quotes Michigan International Speedway – June 15, 2012

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

How has Michigan changed since the repave? “It is an entirely different race track and you race it a lot different with the speeds the way they are — you can echo every quote I had last week and it’s going to somewhat apply to this week. You’re going to look at statistics of who ran well here in the past and race winners and things like that.  It’s not really going to matter — it’s all going to be very circumstantial to where you’re running going into the last stop to whether you’re going to have a shot at a win or not at this race track.  We’re all learning it — I was quite a bit off yesterday by like a half-a-second.  When you’re running speeds like this, it’s not that much.  We’ve got some of that back today — I feel like we’re competitive, we’re maybe only a tenth off now to where we need to be.  We’re going to keep working on it.  We’re getting back to where we need to be this weekend and we’re just slowly getting there.”

Do drivers feel bulletproof in the race cars? “We don’t feel bulletproof — not at these speeds.  You hate to think about what could happen, but running the speeds that we’re running at the end of the straightaway, if someone gets turned the wrong way it could not be good going into turn one, that’s for sure — or turn three, especially if you get turned heading the wrong way if you get turned in the right-rear. Anything can happen — we hope it’s a safe race on Sunday, but at these speeds I don’t think we’ve tested these cars at these speeds yet as far as crashes.  It’s going to be kind of interesting to see how they hold up.  I know that I came in right as SAFER barriers were put down about everywhere, HANS devices were mandatory.  I had a few practice sessions during a race weekend where I noticed the HANS was not hooked up and literally it’s like a complete freak out that you have. You’ve come in and you’re already off the track and you realize that you weren’t hooked up and you almost panic that you didn’t have it hooked up.  I think that we’re all very lucky — I know I was lucky coming in 2005 and 2006 where all that stuff was really coming in and I talk to Michael Waltrip all the time, he said, ‘You don’t understand, those concrete walls used to really hurt, really bad.’  I’m very blessed to come in the sport when I did.  It’s something that NASCAR continues to make changes with our safety.  The cars — as much as I disliked them in the beginning, I love the safety aspect of them now because I’ve taken a few hard hits — Watkins Glen being one of them. You take that for granted at times, but when you run these speeds, it’s kind of a wake-up call of what can happen and what’s the possibility of happening.”

Have you experienced any tire issues? “I haven’t.  We ran a complete fuel run on one set of tires and so we’re analyzing that set now.  There was some decent right side wear, but I think once the race gets going that wear will subside — it typically does.  Really, as much as I give Goodyear a hard time about their hard tires and everything when we have these new paved race tracks they’ve done an awesome job these last two weeks matching the surface to the tire.  That’s why ultimately it makes for very fast speeds, but it gives us a car with grip and something we can tune on.  I haven’t seen those issues, but I think the race will play out very similar to the way it did in Pocono to where even though you see some right-side wear, once the race gets going that will take care of itself and you’ll see a lot of track position racing.”

Do you still come into this weekend feeling confident after the repave? “It’s pretty much blind.  I never count on any prior achievements to guarantee myself a good run anywhere.  When we come here, obviously with the old surface we had a lot of confidence, we had a great setup for it, but the setups are 180 (degrees) from where they were during that time.  Literally, it took us two days to get competitive here this weekend.  Luckily, we had that test day and we’ve caught ourselves up to speed to where we need to be.  As much as those nice Michigan trophies look in the trophy case now, it’s going to be equally hard just to get one more.”

Is Joey Logano starting to become a winning Sprint Cup driver on a regular basis? “I think he’s 22 years old and when I was 22 I was racing Late Models and didn’t have a clue what I was doing if they threw me up in this level at that age.  Given he’s had a head start and he started so early.  It takes time and Joey (Logano) is very mature for his age, but still the maturity as far as off the race track versus on the race track is two different things.  Not that he drives aggressive or anything like that, but it takes a long time for you to realize what it takes to be competitive.  The veteran drivers — I’m not a veteran, it’s been seven years.  Still, we learn every single week of something that we need to do better.  I’m constantly learning every week of what it takes to keep up with the field.  Being 22, it makes it even harder to do that, it really does.  I think he’s done a great job and he’s going to be in the Cup Series and in our sport for a long, long time — there’s no doubt about it.  I think that last week we just saw really the confidence of Joey is what got him in victory lane. When I talk to him during our meetings with Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing) during our driver debrief, I knew that he was super confident in what he had.  When you drive with that confidence, you see the results that he had.  Sometimes it takes a while — not everyone is going to do what Jamie McMurray did back in the day winning his second start or something like that.  It’s just so hard to do it.  Now, coming in the sport, it’s harder than it’s ever been to be competitive.  I truly believe that there’s 15 to 20 cars that you put out front and they could win the race. He’s been given a huge task and I think he’s starting to accomplish what we all thought he would.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing (continued) What will it be like returning to Kentucky Speedway this year? “It’s a lot different, that’s for sure.  It’s going to be the first time we’re not at a new paved track for awhile.  We’re going to have some tire wear and what not there.  It’s going to be fun.  I didn’t have a great weekend there last year — I think I finished right outside the top-10.  It’s a fun track, but it’s also a very hard track to pass on.  It looked like during the race the groove widened out on that track tremendously.  I’m interesting to see how they’ve done — they changed the track around since the traffic, but that’s a good thing when you have people fighting to get in the race track and it takes hours — that means there’s a lot of people in the stands.  I’m not going to complain too bad about that.  It’s a fun race track to race on and obviously we would like to be a little more competitive knowing our teammate won there last year.”

Who will be the next coach for the Charlotte Bobcats? “I don’t know.  I’m still disappointed about Anthony Davis so I think of the coach as an irrelevant thing right now.  I don’t know.  I would like to see Brian Shaw.”