Hamlin Wins at New Hampshire- Just Like he Predicated

[media-credit name=”Noel Lanier” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Earlier this week Denny Hamlin told everyone via Twitter that he would win this week’s Sylvania 300 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The proclamation came after a disappointing finish in Chicago where he ran out of gas and lost valuable positions in the chase for the Sprint Cup. Hamlin definitely backed up his predication with a dominating win as Jimmie Johnson came in second by almost 3 seconds and pole-sitter Jeff Gordon finished third. With his win Hamlin moved up to third in points only seven points behind the new leader Jimmie Johnson who now leads Brad Keselowski by a single point.  Fellow chase participants Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne rounded out the top 5.

Hamlin’s weekend was somewhat disappointing when his qualifying efforts only secured him a 32^ndstarting position.  On Sunday he was in the lead by lap 93 of the scheduled 300 lap event. From that point Hamlin dominated the race extending his lead to over six seconds at times. No one really challenged him for the lead although pit strategy did see Hamlin lose the lead in the pits, only to be out front in very short order. He led 193 of 300 laps securing the bonus point for leading the most laps.

“It doesn’t hurt to have a little confidence in the team,” Hamlin said. “I said we were fast enough to make it up, and we were. I’ll have these guys back until I die. Just our team. These are lightning-fast race cars they’re giving me.”  About his prediction he said, “You don’t want to sound too cocky, but I knew what we were capable of. Our car was extremely strong, and I have a really good knack for this race track. The two together, with a crew chief like Darian, it’s a winning combination.”

Jimmie Johnson said in the media center afterwards, “We just did all we could today.  We just missed a little bit of speed and the 11 seemed to have everybody covered.  And after that, we were the next‑best car and I just kind of ran there all day.”

Jeff Gordon in the media center was happy with his results, “Yeah, it was a great performance.  Certainly helped qualifying on the pole, getting that No. 1 pit stall.  That was important.  We had good pit stops, good pit calls and strategy and then good adjustments. We weren’t very good at the start of the race, but we hung in there with our track position and then we made an adjustment about halfway through the race that wasn’t very good for the short runs, but it seemed to maintain pretty good on the longer runs.  So allowed us to get up there into fourth and then that restart, we were able to jump into third.”

The race saw long green flag runs slowed only for a few caution periods all for debris on the race surface. The Sprint Cup Series will be in Dover Delaware next weekend.