DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Did something happen with your hood pins?
“They were probobly hanging, I would say. It wasn’t on TV, so I’m just assuming they were probably out.”
Did you have any warning something was wrong?
“You know the speeds we were going, when that hood comes up, it just disintegrates and blows. The good thing is it didn’t all stay together. The hood blew apart so much that I had a gap there I could see.”
Is there any more damage besides the hood and windshield?
“The roof is what we’re most concerned about. It blew the roof apart a lot and did some damage inside the car. It’s just a lot of force there that tears up a lot of stuff anytime the hood comes up.”
Were you surprised by what happened?
“It did for a moment, then it’s just looking around, surveying the damage and figuring out – we had a really fast car the first practice, so trying to figure out if we could still run the car again. Obviously this isn’t a problem that used to happen, but nowadays with everything so fragile, any kind of dent in the car affects it aerodynamically. We have it fixed up and I think we are still going to be alright.”
Will you be able to pass on the race track?
“Passing will be tough to say the least. We’re trying something new. I can’t fault them for trying – they tried what we wanted to try and I thought we had a pretty successful race (at Kentucky) and now we’re trying something different. We’ll see if it’s better or not. Still, here is a very tough race track. This is a one groove race track where it’s definitely been tough to pass here for 15 years or as long as I’ve been here. It’s just going to be one of those tough tracks.”
What’s the vision like?
“The vision is okay, actually. I wish the wicker was clear, but I was actually surprised I could see more than I thought I was going to be able to see, but still would like to see a little more clear but other than that, it’s fine.”
