When the season started, we wondered about Mark Martin’s chances of making the Chase. Even in running a partial season, the 54-year old still had the chops to possibly win a couple of races before the deadline and claim a wildcard spot. If we contemplated Martin making it in, the odds of Denny Hamlin slipping through must be that much greater.
Hamlin was contending for his first win of the season when he and Joey Logano came together in California. His resulting back injury will have him out until Talladega on May 5th. Denny won eight times in 2010, had five victories last season, and 22 career decisions in 264 starts. The law of averages has him with a shot of at least one win over his next 16 starts. Can he get two?
Talladega likely will not provide one of them. In 14 contests there, he has no wins and just three top fives. His best was third in the spring race of 2008. Darlington is a different story. Seven races, six top tens, one victory. If Hamlin can claim Darlington, he would need just one more win in his next 14 races to be a contender.
In fact, in the 16 races that will await him upon his return, Denny has also won at Pocono and Michigan, which host two events apiece, New Hampshire, Bristol, Atlanta, and even at Richmond. 16 races to win two, with special emphasis on nine of those events, on seven of those tracks, where he has claimed 13 victories in 93 past attempts. It is not a lock, but Denny Hamlin most definitely has a chance. In the end, he needs to win at least two and climb back into the top Twenty in the season calculations. He might be as much as a hundred points out by then. Still, while points may mean something, wins for Hamlin will mean everything.
Meanwhile, as he slowly sinks from view on this chart for a few weeks, the rest will be in Martinsville on Sunday. Dale Earnhardt Jr is our biggest mover as he has now run nine of the past ten affairs, averaging 35.1 points in each. While Hamlin dropped six spots after Fontana, Clint Bowyer is down eight after his engine let go in his last outing. At least he can’t blame his misfortune on Joey Logano.
| Name | Points | POS | LW | W | T5 | T10 |
|  Brad Keselowski | 373 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 8 |
|  Kyle Busch | 345 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 7 |
|  Jimmie Johnson | 336 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
|  Kasey Kahne | 325 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
|  Greg Biffle | 325 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
|  Matt Kenseth | 318 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
|  Dale Earnhardt, Jr. | 316 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
|  Carl Edwards | 313 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
|  Paul Menard | 313 | 9 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
|  Clint Bowyer | 312 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
|  Kevin Harvick | 293 | 11 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
|  Kurt Busch | 292 | 12 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
|  Ryan Newman | 283 | 13 | 15 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
|  Joey Logano | 279 | 14 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
|  Denny Hamlin | 275 | 15 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
|  Aric Almirola | 275 | 16 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|  Jeff Gordon | 262 | 17 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
|  Martin Truex, Jr. | 256 | 18 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
|  Tony Stewart | 255 | 19 | 18 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
|  Jamie McMurray | 252 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Hello is your last comment jumping on the beat up Logano bandwagon or are you actually aware that Logano gets blamed for everything from global warming to a heart attack by a climber on the way to the summit hike of a lifetime? Just asking. I have never seen anything like it. He was racing a great race in Fontana, it was racing..
I blame Logano for being 6 inches taller than me, 35 years younger, and a hundred pounds lighter. I did not realize he was also the global warming guy.