TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Denny Hamlin — Notes & Quotes
Pocono Raceway – August 3, 2012
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Do you have some news to announce today? “I’ve been excited for a little while. I just want to let everyone know that me and Jordan (Fish) are expecting next January, and excited about that. It’s been a long time coming, so it’s going to be exciting to be a dad.”
What are your thoughts on fatherhood and how were you raised by your dad? “Hopefully, half of what my dad was would be good. My family has done a lot for me to get to this point obviously, and just all of the sacrifices and all that they’ve gone through. My dad tells me all of the time that some of the best times he had is just carrying me around in his pickup truck every day taking me to work with him and things like that. It’s going to be a great experience and so I’m really excited about it and really just excited to be a part of it. For my parents to have grandkids is all going to be good. Everything works great, things happen and we’re excited about the timing. It’s going to be in January, so it’s the off -season so all of that seems to be aligning perfectly for us. My parents and all live a mile or two down the road, so they’re going to get to visit all of the time. It’s going to be a great time over these next six month s to a year.”
Have you set a wedding date? “Especially now that all of this is going on and you want to be patient and everything. I am 31, so I consider myself pretty patient if I haven’t been married yet. There’s no reason to rush into it right now especially with everything that is going on. We’ve obviously got a busy six months ahead of us.”
How was your visit to the Philadelphia Eagles training camp? “It was a great experience. I’m a Michael Vick fan simply because he’s from Virginia Tech and I’m a huge Frank Beamer fan. He’s a guy who I’ve always really admired. To go to any kind of football camp is just amazing. I’ve been to the Redskins, I’ve been to Virginia Tech before, but the Eagles was great. All of the strength and conditioning guys had tons of questions about what we go through. How do we train and things like that. It’s really been a cool experience to go there and obviously help promote the race this weekend. They look good. For me to catch a pass from Michael Vick while DeSean Jackson is screaming, ‘Don’t miss it. Don’t miss it,’ was pretty cool. I tried kicking a field goal and I thought that 30 yards would be simply a chip shot and we had to move way in and I still didn’t make it. I found something that I’m pretty bad at.”
Do you think NASCAR and the NFL could share information regarding helmets and concussions? “I think that Toyota has something to do with the helmets and things like that. I know that they’re all working on that, and concussions was an issue over here and then there (NFL) — it has always been an issue. I’m sure the technology is meshing back and forth. They’re constantly changing both the foam in our helmets and in the football helmets, so I’m sure that it’s going back and forth.”
Have you seen any changes with the race track since you were here in June? “It’s different, that’s for sure. I could just tell. The first thing that I asked is if Goodyear switched the tire. They didn’t, so the only thing we can think that’s making the cars feel different this time around is that we’ve got an extra half inch of side skirt cut off the car and it seemed from my perspective that it’s made the cars a little bit looser into the corner, so we’re having to adjust for that. This track always changes. With each win that we’ve had here we’ve had completely different setups in the car so we constantly evolve those setups and we’re going to have to do it again this weekend. From what the first practice looked like, it looked like our teammates were pretty good so we should head in that direction.”
What are AJ Allmendinger’s chances of getting back in a Cup car after his suspension? “I think that NASCAR is not going to let him back unless they feel like he’s 100 percent ready. I think he’ll be back in a Cup car. Will it be a good Cup car? I don’t think so. I think he’ll get an opportunity, but it’s just so hard now. When champions of our sport like Matt Kenseth can’t find sponsors and things it’s going to be a real tough road to get back to where you were. He had a really, really good ride obviously in that 22 car. It’s just so hard now. These companies are just not willing to take the risks like they used to on a young driver much less someone with a bad history. It’s going to be a tough road. I’m sure we’ll see him back in the Cup Series at some point.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing (continued) What makes drivers more confident this time around following the tire test at Michigan International Speedway? “I was there (at the test) and the tire that we’re going to have is a lot better than what we had there to race with, but not as good as what we had to practice with. But, you figured that they were going to cut it right down the middle for what they wanted. The reason that I say that we’re not going to have issues is that looking at tire temperatures I know from the test what they were and what they were at this test and they were 30 or 40 degrees cooler and the temperature was hotter. So, I don’t think you’ll see any tire blistering like you saw before. Plus, the left side wear is virtually nothing where there was some wear before. I think that we’ll have a pretty easy race when we go back.”
Are you more prepared after seeing so many drivers become fathers recently? “We’re all drinking the same water. Prepared — I’m going to learn as I go. I’m going to have the training wheels on at the start, but I’m sure now I’m going to get all the advice I can handle, but I’m going to just lean on my parents. I turned out just fine — other than my head is all messed up sometimes.”
How different is the truck from you Cup car? “It’s quite a bit different. You drive the two vehicles a lot different. I thought that I was a little disappointed with our practice. We were middle of the pack I guess you could say, but I thought we were a top-five to six truck. It’s different. I ran the truck race here a couple of years ago with Elliott (Sadler) and when Kasey (Kahne ) and Elliott were in it and the draft was really important then and I think it’s going to be even way more important now. So, I think that you’re going to treat it almost like a speedway race down the straightaway in the sense that instead of choosing to pass every time you get to someone, you’ll choose to push and make your passes. I thought that the 30 truck (Nelson Piquet Jr.) was head and shoulders above everyone, but the draft is so big and there’s so much lap time in it that I think that two trucks could possible draft past the best truck on the last lap.”
Why do the trucks appear more driveable? “Well, they don’t have as much horsepower and they have more drag and they punch a bigger hole, so when you carry more throttle it makes the draft more evident. The aero push is worse in the trucks, but the reason that the racing is closer is because they punch such a huge hole in the air that they get the bigger run down the straightaway, so that by the time they get to the next corner they’ve all ‘botched’ back up again and so that’s the difference. At times, you look at it and say, ‘Man, the truck series — that kind of package is what the Cup cars need,’ but I’ve been in Nationwide races where they have the bigger holes that they punch in the air and it’s bad, so I think that where we are at with the Cup Series is good, but the trucks — I just think the trucks put on good racing simply because they are so boxy and so tall that the draft is important at every race track you go to. So, no matter how bad your truck handles, you’ll catch the next guy by the end of the straightaway.”
What are your thoughts on the restart issues? “That’s tough. I was somewhat on Elliott’s (Sadler) side on that thing — what does he do? But, I think that everyone in the Cup race — I was up front quite a bit on those restarts. Everyone was very aware of the lecture that we got in the driver’s meeting and I think that everyone made sure NASCAR had no question or needed to question anything that anyone was doing, so I think that that kind of shock that they sent through in that drivers meeting is going to tame us down on restarts at least for the next month or so.”
