RACE INFO:
Event: Quicken Loans 400
Date/Time: June 15/1 p.m. ET
2013 winner: Greg Biffle
2013 polesitter: Carl Edwards
Distance: 200 laps/400 miles
Track Length: 2 miles
Banking: 18 degrees
Track Shape: Oval
EXPRESS NOTES:
Pocono Recap: Denny Hamlin finished fourth in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, logging his second-straight top-five finish in the #11 FedEx Ground Toyota. Hamlin and crew chief Darian Grubb played the strategy game to near-perfection in the 160-lap event won by Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the 2.5-mile triangular track. Hamlin, a four-time Pocono winner, lined up fifth for the final restart with 12 laps remaining, moved up to fourth in Turn 1 and took the checkered flag fourth behind Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch. Hamlin qualified on the pole with a track record speed and ran among the leaders throughout the event. An untimely caution after many leaders had already made green flag stops shuffled the #11 machine back to 13th for a midrace restart, but Hamlin quickly worked his way back to the front after a series of yellow flag periods and varying strategies on pit road. The finish marked Hamlin’s fourth top-five result of the 2014 season, and second-straight following a fifth-place run at Dover. Hamlin moved up one spot to eighth in the NASCAR standings following Pocono, 78 points behind leader Jeff Gordon after 14 of 26 regular season races.
Michigan Preview: The Series heads to the Irish Hills of Michigan for Sunday’s 400-mile event at Michigan International Speedway. Hamlin is a two-time Cup Series winner at the wide, two-mile track, winning back-to-back June races at Michigan in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Hamlin led a race-high 123 laps en route to Victory Lane. The following year, a late-race two-tire pit call put Hamlin on the front row for the final restart, where Hamlin took the lead and held off now-teammate Matt Kenseth for the win. Hamlin started eighth, led nine laps and finished 20th in the most-recent trip to Michigan last August.
FedEx Office – Closest to Michigan International Speedway: 2800 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104, (734) 665-2400
Detroit Along for the Ride in Michigan: The FedEx Express center in Detroit will be recognized for its operational excellence and giving back to the community with its “DTW” code letters on the b-post of the #11 FedEx Express Toyota this weekend at Michigan International Speedway.
HAMLIN CONVERSATION – MICHIGAN:
How can you build on the team’s recent momentum heading into Michigan this weekend?
“It seems like our FedEx team is starting to get the finishes that we have deserved pretty much all year. We had some good runs earlier in the season that we didn’t get good finishes for various reasons, but the last couple weeks, we have been able to get a good qualifying effort and get our car pretty good for the race. Like Pocono, Michigan is another place where we lost a little bit of an advantage once they repaved it at the end of 2011, but I’m encouraged after how we ran last Sunday. These races at big tracks tend to come down to fuel and tire strategy, so hopefully we can stay ahead of it during the race and give ourselves a chance to race for the win at the end.”
