DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is your mindset entering the ‘Eliminator’ round of the Chase?
“We talked about it earlier this week, but obviously excited about being part of it — the final eight. Really these tracks are statistically my best race tracks in this Chase. I’m pretty excited about our chances. We’ve got a big obstacle ahead of us this weekend at Martinsville. We’re just going to enjoy it, have fun and see where we all stack up.”
Can you conserve tires at Martinsville to gain at advantage late in the race?
“You can. I think the tire life here is probably more important than it’s ever been. These cars, now that they are slammed on the ground you don’t have as much weight transfer so it’s harder to keep the tires on it. I think that really every time we come here there is some sort of rule change that makes you change your setup and you keep having to keep up with that. We missed it here in the spring trying a different kind of setup and really didn’t get any practice to back it up. Hopefully this time around it looks like we have good weather tomorrow so I’m looking forward to going through the list ad figuring out what we need to race well.”
Are there favorites in the Chase right now?
“There’s guys that have showed more speed than others for sure. There’s a lot of things that can happen between now and Homestead. One loose wheel, one crash pretty much takes you out of it. It doesn’t matter how fast you are if you can’t finish these races in a good position, a good finishing position then it doesn’t matter how fast your cars are. You have to have all the pieces to the puzzle together now that you’re part of the final eight because the four that move on will be the four that stand out I think in this round. It’s not going to be about surviving or backing your way — I don’t think anybody other than the race winners will be going into Phoenix thinking, ‘Okay, let’s just have a solid week here and move on to Homestead.’ There is no more hanging back and trying to be conservative from here on out. You’ve got to be fast.”
Are you still racing Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon to win at Martinsville?
“You still do simply because they still have great results. If you’ve seen really between the three of us, we’ve had bad races here every now and then where something is amiss or the setups not good and we just don’t run well. In the end you’re still going to be racing the same guys in my opinion no matter what the changes are because they have a technique to get around this race track that is going to make them successful whether they’re driving a Cup car or a truck. It’s worked for them for so many years, there’s no turning back. They’ll never be bad at this race track ever again — it don’t matter what tire, what car — eventually they’ll figure it out. IT’s just a matter of if you have one of those off weekends or not. I consider the spring — our one bad race here because we didn’t have any practice and we had an experimental setup in and it just didn’t work. We thought it would. With enough practice I believe still it’s going to be the same old guys. There are other guys that can be really competitive, but they’re not consistently competitive every single race here. There will be two or three others that will be obviously very, very strong come race day. I think Clint (Bowyer) will probably be one of the guys — not based off of anything today, but historically at this race track has been really, really good. On these forward drive type race tracks his team seems to be pretty solid.”
What would it mean to win this race on the 50th anniversary of the grandfather clock as the trophy?
“It would be right up at the top as far as favorite wins or best wins if you’re able to get it this weekend. Not only that, but you don’t have to think about the rest of this round. You just then shift your focus to Homestead, which we all test at next week. It would be very significant as far as on the list in my career of how high a win would be here. Not only for the historic reasons at this race track, but just the implications that it would mean for our race team going forward.”
Are you surprised Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman made it to this round of the Chase?
“Not based off the way they’ve been finishing. There’s been a couple races where you look back and you think they’re going to finish in the 20s and they take tires late or whatever and make a charge to the front. They’ve really been as solid as anyone on finishing. That’s what’s going to be the key this round is finishing — really similar to what those guys have been doing for the first two rounds. Breaks have to come your way for those things to happen and the cautions have to fall right for you. I think they’ve both done an amazing job with the speed of their cars, the finishing I think better than what the speed of their cars are. They’ve done a great job and I would consider them just as big of a threat as I would Brad (Keselowski) or Joey (Logano) or Kevin (Harvick) simply because they seem to close really well at the end of these races.”
