Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
NASCAR Media Tour, Charlotte – January 23, 2018
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media in Charlotte:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Matt Kenseth leaving, what’s going to be missed without him as a teammate?
“When Matt (Kenseth) came over, obviously it was a great addition to our team at the time. The 20 car had been struggling, and he gave it some solidarity. It performed well, and really the information is ‑‑ the comparatives that he had from Roush (Fenway Racing) over to Joe Gibbs Racing and how the cars drove gave us some good input about where we should take our cars in the future. Obviously he was a great teammate on and off the racetrack. I had a really close relationship to him off the racetrack. We were pretty good friends, and really during the meetings he was very engaged, asked a lot of questions, and that obviously is important in chemistry with any race team. That probably will be the next thing that will be missed the most is the input and the things that he said during the meetings to kind of send us in the right direction.”
Being on the driver’s council, what are some of the items of business that you’re looking at?
“Yeah, we don’t have too many items of discussion, being that this is going to be a year with relatively limited amount of change. You know, I know we talked a little bit about cone choose rule on restarts for some tracks. That didn’t come forth this year. I know several of us were hoping so, being that there was such a disadvantage at some racetracks such as happen to come off pit lane in the wrong lane, you’re not going to win the race, and that’s not necessarily fair. I think giving the drivers a choose rule would be something good to look forward in the future, but overall it’s status quo on the way the stages went. The cars are relatively the same, so there’s good momentum that we need to build on from last year.”
Outside of that obvious goal of winning your first championship, what would be your next maybe biggest goal in the sport?
“I’d say probably the next goal would be winning the Brickyard 400. I think that that is the next big one, that or the Coke 600. Equally I want both of them equally. Those are the two races that I’d like to cross off of the important ones on my list for sure.”
Are you ready for the season or are you kind of soaking up the last few remnants of the off‑season?
“Yeah, I think that this is far enough removed from the (Daytona) 500 that I’m still not in race mode yet. I think as we get closer to Daytona, probably a week away, I’ll get engaged on everything. I mean, we have meetings before that, so I’m sure that it will start. But right now, we’re still a month out from the official kickoff of our season. There’s still a lot to ‑‑ a lot of downtime to be had between now and then.”
We recently saw video of you walking with seven or something little girls in a pink limo, going to a doll store. Did you ever see yourself ‑‑
“No, no. I was told ‑‑ when I was informed of what Taylor’s birthday plans were of going to American Girl doll store and things like that, I’m thinking, cool, I’m going to have the day off while you go do that. It’s like, no, it’s just us two with those seven kids. Wow, that was interesting. So it was really fun, though, because they were all four or five years old, so it was cool ‑‑ I mean, it’s like ‑‑ I don’t know, I can’t relate it to any store that I can think of, taking like me and my friends to, but it’s big for them, man, to be able to go in that store and kind of pick out whatever they want.”
Did it help, make it easier to get used to the chemistry thing again? What does he bring?
“Yeah, I mean, I think really not much changes within our race team because Erik (Jones) was already there last year in the meetings, so really we just kind of lose a guy. We really don’t bring someone in new that we’ve got to understand, and I feel like Erik started to become more outspoken as the year went on. Same with Daniel (Suárez). And I’m sure their second year in it’s going to be even more magnified. Yeah, it’s just going to be one less car of information essentially from our team standpoint, and really, I think that by mid‑season we’ll be looking at those guys just as if they were Matt Kenseth, using their notes just as often.”
Has anyone emerged?
“Not really, to be honest with you. I mean, I think that me and Kyle (Busch) both are vocal enough in our meetings that it just depends on what happened to who that weekend of who gives the most information out. I think that it’s equal bearing on shoulders, and no one person has more of a larger role than another.”
You’ve been also a model of consistency. What’s kind of your strategy?
“Yeah, we’ve been very consistently good, but we obviously need to have a great year. We need to have a year like 2010 or ’12 where we win more than five races and contend for championships. With this format, it’s a little bit different because the entire championship is based off of one race and not your whole body of work. I think last year we certainly had the correct champion as far as that’s concerned. He performed well throughout the entire season. But it all comes down to one race now, so how can you focus so much effort in the regular season, putting yourself in a good spot, and still know that it doesn’t matter if you don’t perform well at Homestead. I think it’s just taken us to the next level. I mean, I think we’re right there. We’re level 8 of 10 of where we really need to be.”
You mentioned the end of the season. Do you still think about the way the season ended last year and have frustrations?
“Yeah, but I’ve ‑‑ I haven’t thought about it at all. I mean, I think that once the season is over, I’m pretty much offline from anything racing. But I mean, there’s good and bads to every playoff I’ve ever been in. Like I’ve had the craziest things happen, and I’ve had things like last year happen. I’ve seen it all, so nothing really surprises me. You just learn from it, and you try to figure out how you can put yourself in a better mindset when the same situation comes up next year.”
Have you had conversations with your crew chief or participated in pit practice where you have one less crew guy?
“I have not. We’ve talked a little bit about pit crew stuff, but we haven’t ‑‑ I haven’t actually seen it.”
Have you had a strategy discussion?
“Within the team they have, and I’ve gotten a little bit of the summary of that, but I haven’t seen it in person yet.”
Kyle said earlier that marketing of all the younger guys is unfair. Do you see that being unfair, as well?
“I think that we all get ample opportunities. I do think that they spend a lot of ‑‑ it’s all about the young guys. It really has been over the last two years or so. But I mean, that’s what’s the future, too, right? We’ve seen an abundance of veterans retire over the last couple years, and so it’s hard to bank and try to grow your sport off of someone that’s not going to be there in the next few years. But I do think we’re in a point now where the driver pool that we have now is probably going to be the pool two and three years from now. I don’t think you’ll see much turnover here in the next two to three years, so you’re going to see ‑‑ this is going to be the field for a little while, I believe.”
Is it fair to say that a driver that’s been around as long as you have, if you can establish yourself as one of the more popular faces of the sport in NASCAR, it’s probably throwing money away to try to (indiscernible)?
“Right. I mean, I think your fan base is probably made relatively early in your career; no doubt about it. Even when I was a successful rookie, I mean, we never were really super popular. For whatever reason, there was always the bigger names out there and things like that. I think the young guys are very lucky now that they’re coming in the sport, it’s as other drivers are leaving, so those experienced drivers have their fan base that then they want to pull for somebody else. Most likely it’s not going to be someone that raced against their favorite driver, it’s going to be someone new that comes in. So that’s where all the fans really go is to the new guys for that reason. They’re picking someone from the start just like they picked their driver that retired from the start.”
Being so close to the championship so often, is that motivation for you, or has it been more something that’s kind of dragged you back?
“It’s been motivation. I mean, I’m always motivated to be better, and I’m just going to keep grinding as long as I can to try to win a championship, and putting in the hard work, I’ve definitely worked harder last year on things I can do to be better personally on the racetrack, and hopefully that pays off this year and for years to come. But it’s not been a drag by any means. My career has been great every year. I feel like I’m better, and even those stats may not show it, I feel like I’m a better race car driver. But you just ‑‑ sometimes circumstances work out for you. Dale Earnhardt was the greatest Daytona driver for how many years before he won it? 20 years, right? He dominated every time. Every year he was in contention. He just never won. Eventually he kept putting himself up front and in contention, and he won. That’s the way I’m going to keep approaching my career is keep grinding on the door.”
All the Toyotas were good last year, the 78 a level above. Is there an easy explanation for that?
“There’s not an easy one, but it’s a difficult one. I think that they do a great job of focusing so much effort on their two cars at the time, now one. Things move a little bit slower in a four‑car organization. When you have something new that you find, a part or piece that seems to be better or something aerodynamics, it takes a while to make sure everyone gets it, and they don’t want to give it to just one guy. You have to make sure you have four of everything. For us there had to be six of everything. And they can implement things way, way faster than what we were able to, so it always seemed like we were just a little bit behind those guys. So I think there’s something to be learned there. I think that they did a phenomenal job with everything that they had. They still had ‑‑ did a lot of things on their own. It wasn’t like they were just taking our ‑‑ rolling a car out of our shop and he’s getting on the track and racing with it. They spent their time and did their due diligence in Denver and made their cars better.”
Obviously you have a kid now and I know as you’ve gotten older, the competition has changed, but is there something about winning a race that never changes for you?
“You know, I think I appreciate the victories more now because in my mind they’re harder to come by. I think with data sharing, it completely changed the game in NASCAR. I think that it’s very similar to other sports where I think that Michael Jordan was significantly better than the second best player in his day. Nowadays the best player in the nab, I think the second best is very close to the best because they have more information. They have more data. They’re starting sooner. And it’s no different in racing. These kids are starting way earlier in their racing career than we started, so they’re better. I think the talent pool is better now than it’s ever been, which makes it harder to win, which makes you happier when you do win. I think as you get older, you do realize that talent is coming in bunches right behind you.”
Do you have a dog in the Super Bowl fight?
“No dog. But it’s ‑‑ I think the champs are going to still be the champs. I don’t know, I don’t see it changing. I think it’ll be close, but I don’t think it’ll change.”
Is the NFL the other sport for most of the driver corps do you think? Mostly NFL?
“Yeah, probably. I mean, that’s what you see the most engagement on, and obviously when you look at ratings from 2017, the top 20 rated events on TV, like 17 of them were NFL, so I think that probably, yes, that’s what most people resonate to.”
How does it affect NASCAR that one of the announcers for the pregame of the Super Bowl is going to be a former NASCAR driver?
“Well, it just depends on the role really, and whether it’s a prominent role or is it just something at the pregame at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon. I mean, it just depends. I’d like to see what they’re going to use him for. I would have said two, three years ago there’s no way Dale Jr. should be on TV. But he changed, and he really has gotten so much better at it. When you think about Jeff Burton and those guys, I never thought they would be good at what they do, and lo and behold, they go through an off‑season of training, and they sound great on TV. I suspect that’s going to be the same thing with Dale Jr.”
With that big of an audience, it’s got to help NASCAR.
“You would think it helps, but it’s not an active driver. This is a former driver. So you have to get people excited about current drivers, not former ones.”
With the new crop of drivers that are coming in and we talked about the football dynamic, driving for Coach Gibbs, how much of an impact does he have on newer talent coming in and grooming them in a good direction?
“Well, I think it’s a combination from JGR and Toyota. I think that Toyota plays a bigger role on driver development. I think that they start them in two or three series lower than what JGR is looking at drivers, and they have a good eye for talent. They always have. I think that they use the JGR platform in which to groom that talent. There’s no better organization that some of these young guys can get into is getting in a KBM truck or a JGR XFINITY car. It’s the best of the best; it’s on you to perform at that point.”
How many phone calls have you personally made about the Showdown this year, and do you have any special plans for this event?
“I do. I actually just have a little booklet of ideas and things that we’re thinking about doing. Not really ready to disclose them yet, but definitely excited about how we’re going to do it, and the format which we run, I’ll have input on all that, and obviously we still want to make it one of the biggest short track races we possibly can, just like we were two years ago.”
You talked about how great Toyota’s development program is, but at this point there’s no room at the inn, and short of the 77 coming back, Christopher Bell has got to be one of the most talented drivers, where is he going to go? There’s no place for a Toyota at this point.
“Well, I think there’s always a place, as long as Furniture Row doesn’t have four cars. There’s always going to be a place that you can go. It’s ultimately about sponsorship, though, right? That’s the biggest ‑‑ been the biggest factor in the hiring and the firing of drivers in the last 10 years is sponsorship. And so you have to have it to perform. That’s just the way the teams’ finances is. They have to run off the bottom line, and they’re going to put who they think is best for the job and financially makes sense. I think that we have four cars at JGR, but ultimately Christopher Bell is part of the TRD family, the Toyota family, and there’s other Toyota teams out there.”
How much security do you feel and how much comfort does it give you knowing you have the support of FedEx? They’ve stood with you throughout your career.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m in the first year of a new deal this year, so I’m very confident. We’ve been together for all of my career, which is ‑‑ me and Jimmie (Johnson) are the only two guys that can say that, and that’s just ‑‑ yeah, you thank your lucky stars every day you have a company like FedEx behind you. I saw they got named one of the top 10 most admired companies, and for good reason. They’re very loyal. They do the right thing, and obviously they’re in here to win a championship, and that’s what I want to do, and they feel like I’m the best fit to do that for them.”
How would you describe J.D. Gibbs?
“Well, he was instrumental in bringing me to JGR, which is ‑‑ he was the reason. He essentially is the reason I got hired at JGR. He’s the one that traveled down to Hickory and watched me run laps in a late model in the middle of winter and told his dad that he thought I was something, and so we have a strong bond with the whole Gibbs family but especially J.D. and Melissa and his sons and whatnot. I think that Joe is priming his grandsons to eventually take over the reins at Joe Gibbs Racing, and you’ve got to have a long‑term plan. Joe can’t do this for forever, even though he’s going to try. Joe Gibbs Racing is going to be in good hands no matter who has it, but J.D. was such an instrumental part of my early career. There’s a great picture at my parents’ house that my mom really, really likes. It’s my very first start in Daytona, and it’s me and J.D. sitting on the wall, and my dad is in the background, and it was kind of like the passing of the torch, right, from my dad having to finance my racing career and being my mentor to J.D. then taking over. It’s a special picture that we have.”
Have you had a chance to evaluate Ty yet, Ty Gibbs?
“I’ve seen him, watched him in person twice now, and honestly when you’re his age, 14 or whatever he is, it’s so raw. It’s like ‑‑ there’s so much refinement that has to be done between now and when he’s ready to step up to the next level. But he’s got the one thing that is hard to teach, and that’s speed. You can teach control after that. I’m looking forward to seeing where he takes this whole thing.”
Basketball head‑on, Virginia Tech, what’s your feeling so far?
“Well, they beat North Carolina so far, which is good, but they need more help if they want to make it in the tournament. I think they need one more big win.”
