Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media at Martinsville Speedway:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How much do you look forward to racing here at Martinsville?
“Looking forward to it, this has obviously been a really good track for us. Really the last 10 days or so I’ve really been itching about getting back because this is such a fun race for me and obviously we have a lot of high expectations. I come here, it’s very similar to when I was racing go-karts back in the day, like all the WKA Nationals would come to my home track and I was like, ‘OK, I have a chance to beat them because I know this track,’ kind of like that. The best comes to town and it just feels like I race here every week. Even my first lap here on the track here, it feels like I’ve run a million laps here.”
Now that Jeff Gordon has retired, who do you consider your biggest competition at Martinsville?
“Myself, I don’t know how many pit road penalties I’ve had here at this race track or why I choose to push it on pit road knowing that I have the speed on the race track that we’ve shown. I think I’ve had two in the last bunch of races, just consecutively. That’s been a challenge and last year in the fall race I beat up my car pretty good trying to come back through the pack the second time or maybe it was the first time I had a penalty. I think it’s me just being a little more cautious on pit road and making sure that I’ve got a car that can finish the race with all four fenders.”
Can you afford an early pit road penalty at Martinsville with so many laps to make up for it?
“You can’t if you’re going to win, especially the bonehead things that I’ve done, I’ve had my penalties in the race where what does it really matter on lap 80 if you gain a spot on pit road since you have so many more laps. Luckily, most of my penalties have been early in the race, but still it takes its toll on the car to have to come through the pack multiple times. I think a lot of it too is that we typically qualify pretty well here so then we’re trying to play with the timing lines on pit road and you can get a bunch, but you can also lose a bunch of you mess up and speed like I have. I think that really qualifying good has hurt us, it’s put us in position to give us the option to go for it on pit road at times when probably backing off would have been smarter.”
Does having the victory from Daytona give you the chance to take more risks?
“It just makes me hungry, I look at the next six races and I’m like if I don’t win two of them I’ll probably be disappointed. I just think that we’re probably getting into the swing of things. Mine and ‘Wheels’ (Mike Wheeler, crew chief) relationship is really getting there, even though we’ve worked together for a really long time, we’re starting to get really on the same page and getting the cars like I like to drive them. I’m pretty optimistic for obvious reasons and I look at this point in the schedule as let’s take advantage of getting some wins and getting some bonus points for the first round.”
How have the discussions gone with the RTA as it relates to the posting of purse money?
“I think it was meant to be an open book at the beginning between the RTA and the drivers or the teams and their drivers. I don’t know that some teams were as forthcoming as maybe ours were. I think that really everyone had to just essentially renegotiate a fair purse amount and I think everyone is different and everyone is all over the board. It’s tough to say, I think everything is better the way that they’ve formatted the purse now, it’s more of a linear line instead of a weird looking line. I don’t know, I think some fans like to see that and us drivers I think we like to see purses posted personally. It doesn’t matter whether you post it or not, sometimes if you win a race it’s cool to see, ‘Hey, I did good this week.’ I don’t know, but I think that everyone is different and everyone has always been different, but I think when this happened it forced everyone to go back to the drawing board and figure out what was a fair amount because the buckets got switched around a whole lot as far as purses were concerned. I think in the end, we’re all out here and I think everyone feels like they have a fair deal at this point. It’s all for the better I believe, but we would like to see the numbers get posted.”
Have you talked to NASCAR about posting the purse numbers again?
“I think they’re considering it. I think if everyone knows what they’re getting, I don’t know what the benefit is from keeping it from the public, I don’t know but there’s probably some sort of reason that I don’t know about.”
How much information about this track do you share with your JGR teammates?
“I’ve been an open book to my teammates for sure and I think everyone as run better the past two years for sure. It is hard to believe, but my guess is that has a pretty good chance to change on Saturday about Kyle (Busch) because I do think he’s running this race (NCWTS). I’d say he has a pretty good chance on Saturday, but he’s been in position at times on Sundays, but for whatever reason it just hasn’t happened. There’s many tracks like that for me, he’s won a few more races than I have in my career but there are tracks where I’ve run extremely strong and just haven’t won at. I’m an open book really to anyone that wants to chat and as long as I’m not racing against them if they’re not my teammate that is. He’s good and he’s a great short track racer, he runs late models all over the place and wins a lot of races. He’ll have his clock sooner or later.”
Do you ever keep any small tidbits of information to yourself about a track?
“Not keeping one or two things to myself I feel like has cost me wins. I shared some things at Richmond with my teammates and they went out and beat me with them recently in the last few years. I just have never been a believer of keeping something under my hat. I just feel like if we’re a team and that’s what makes our Joe Gibbs Racing team so strong is that I feel like if I ask Carl (Edwards) a question or ask Matt (Kenseth) a question or Kyle (Busch), I expect them to give me the 100 percent, honest answer and tell me everything. Don’t leave this part out or that part out and I just feel like if I do that same to them, then when I need that information I’ll get it back. It might have cost me here or there, but probably the information I’ve got on other tracks has gotten me a win or two so I think it all evens out.”
What was your appeal to local and regional short tracks when you were growing up?
“I’m not really sure what the appeal was, I think it was just going to my first race when I was five years old at a local short track and being infatuated with some of the local stars and just thinking if I could just make it to the top level of my local short track that I would be really, really happy. I’d feel like I’ve made it. The local short tracks are what make the sport, the home tracks are such a crucial part of what makes NASCAR racing. It’s where these young drivers that are coming up now are coming from and really I wish there was a healthier model. I think NASCAR and the Cup Series, the trickling down to the other series have gotten good about watching costs and trying to cut costs here and there, but I think the local short tracks still struggle with car count. That’s something that wasn’t a factor in the 90s or early 2000s and now I think that some tracks struggle. How you get the fans to come out on a local Saturday night – I think it’s a different generation now, everyone is on their phones and whatever the generation from 16 to 25 now, whatever you call them, and they’re into Snapchat and Instagram. They’re not into the local short tracks quite as much, but it’s important we keep those short tracks strong because that’s the feeder series to get here.”
What was the biggest thing you learned when you raced on local tracks?
“Biggest thing I learned was that I had to fix everything I wrecked. I think that I was very patient back then and I feel like I’m patient now and not using up equipment. Even though I know I don’t have to fix it anymore, I appreciated what it took to put it all back together.”
How do you feel about the new aero package after the first five races?
“We’re happy. I think there’s probably a group that’s searching for more off and I think that would be a great goal for us maybe in the future or wherever it may be to get these corner speeds even slower. Surprisingly though, we’re two to three tenths off of where we were last year with the same tire and all we’ve done is change the aero package. I don’t know why speeds are a little bit slower, but any time we can get the spoiler down or down in size, it’s definitely going to help no matter what track you’re at. I think overall the majority or all the drivers love the new package. It has given us the ability to see comers and goes – guys that take off at the beginning of a run and they come on back at the end and it’s just like we’re back to driving these race cars like we were four or five years ago.”
