Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 21, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media via videoconference prior to the Coca-Cola 600 this Sunday:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Can you talk about the special paint scheme you will be running at this weekend to support small business?
“It’s a special scheme – we actually haven’t had too many special Coke 600 schemes over the course of my career – but to have a special one here that’s going to be supporting small business. We all know that small businesses are the backbone of the U.S., so FedEx actually has a grant program – you can go to FedEx.com/supportsmallgrants – you can go there and apply. FedEx has been delivering through this whole pandemic and obviously we saw it has been on the hood of my car now for the greater part of two months, you see delivering strength. Having a special paint scheme, I always enjoy them. Hopefully we’ll give them a good run. Charlotte was a great track for us on the oval last year. We didn’t get a good finish, but we were super-fast, so the Coke 600 is one that is really the highest on my list right now of races I want to win.”
How did you come up with the idea to get the mask you used following Wednesday night’s race?
“This all came together really quick. I basically had the idea right after Sunday and to get it all done by Wednesday took a feat. We wanted to actually create different types of emotions. I’m sure there’s plenty of resting faces as they say that I usually have on my face that they can take a picture of and we can put it over. I’ve had good luck with it, but I don’t know if I’ll bring it back. I don’t know if I should do this as a one-time thing or bring it back, but certainly it was a hit for the good or the bad.”
What did your daughter’s think of the mask?
“They saw it at the beginning, they got to watch it on TV, and they thought it was funny. My oldest one, especially.”
What is the sport learning through all of this that it can apply to the upcoming races?
“I think not having to go through so much red tape to make changes. I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned in this process. When you get everyone together and everyone wants to accomplish the same goal, and that’s to get on the race track and put on a show for the people at home, we can make it happen. It does take concessions from some groups, but I think they’ve done a good job at balancing that and trying to make everyone happy. Everyone has their own agenda in what they need. Whether it be the iRacing that kind of held the fans over a couple months, to coning back in this form it’s been a homerun in my opinion for everyone at NASCAR’s management to make this happen. I like how nimble they are being and just because we have done this for ‘X’ amount of years, we’ve always had practice and qualifying, but we never did an invert – they are willing to make changes and do it quickly. That’s something I haven’t seen in our sport in a very long time, or probably ever. It’s the most nimble as I’ve ever seen.”
What did you think of the invert to determine starting position?
“Listen, it didn’t benefit me. I started 16th and was probably going to qualify better or I would have been further up if we kept the order the same. I think it mixes it up. I have no issues with inverts. I think right around that 20 number is a good number for inverting cars. Certainly, I think the first caution there, I look up and Ty Dillon is leading the race and was like, good for him. Otherwise he probably wouldn’t have qualified there and the likelihood of him leading laps is not that high considering where he normally would have start and all things considered. This is a good opportunity for him to showcase his sponsor out there at least for a little while. I’m all for it, especially on these doubleheader type weekends.”
Do you feel momentum will play a factor with this many races so close together?
“It’s good. When you’re winning, it means you’re doing some things right. I think being able to go right back to a race track three or four days later, it allows you to keep that momentum for an extended amount of time when it comes to races. I like it. I’m voicing out loud here that this is something I’d like to see for years to come – to have multi races in a week. This is something that can really help our sport, I believe personally. Like I said, there’s so many loops you are going to have to jump through to get it done. This is a good thing for our sport right now. To make up some of these races, it might not be at the same race track – we’re putting on a show for the people at home that millions of people that have been waiting on us to get on track.”
Has it been important to have multiple races back to back or even go to a track you’ll go to later?
“I think that with it being no fans, I think kind of why does it matter whether you run a track multiple times. I think people can’t argue that we saw a different race last night than what we saw on Sunday. There were different players in it. Even though it was just three days later you would think let’s just copy and paste the results from Sunday and that’s what’s going to be on Wednesday and it just wasn’t the case. People made adjustments. I know for us, we got better, and we were already a top five car on Sunday. It took us the majority of the race to get up towards the front, so we had to work through traffic. Things like that. We didn’t just qualify up front. It’s a very good balance right now of what they have going on. I certainly think that having – until fans are able to come back – I think that’s when you start to say you got to visit some of these markets and make sure these tracks have a date.”
How do you approach multiple races at the same track – do you take setup chances?
“We wholesaled our car. I won’t giveaway any secrets, but my conversation with my crew chief on Monday was, ‘Okay we have a third-place car, we can try to tweak on it and maybe things fall our way and we can win the race on Wednesday. Or, the Southern 500 will be back here later in the year, do we want to come up with a completely different setup, new ideas and see if it’s better?’ And, it was better. I’m glad we took the chance. He said I was very nervous, not me, but the crew chief said he was nervous two nights ago thinking we could run really bad with this. It’s out of the box for us, but it was certainly better and when we go back for the Southern 500 in a couple months, that’s the direction we’ll be heading towards.”
Why is it important to support small businesses, like you have on your hood?
“That’s a great point and we understand the importance of the shipping companies and FedEx has been going through this whole pandemic the entire time shipping people’s needs for hospitals. They have a lot of stuff that they continue to do and really now providing a one million dollar grant to small businesses is even better. We all know, and I know that small business is the backbone of our country, and they all know that as well. Great to have a special paint scheme and showcase the small businesses.”
How has it been experiencing the changes with social distancing with racing coming back?
“I notice the biggest change because I’m there hours before the event, hours after, so I see the difference. As far as the product in which we’re putting on TV, which is most of our fans are each and every week, it’s amazing to see how similar – and it is – it’s the same. There’s a green flag, there’s a couple stages and there’s a checker. There’s a race going on and it doesn’t look any different on TV than what we have had in the past. I think that even though the protocols are a lot different, security getting in is a lot different, the scanning and making sure you’re all good – that’s different. Hey, we make changes and we’re doing whatever we can right now to keep ourselves on that stage and I think we’re doing a great job and all the teams are doing a great job with making sure they are complying to all the rules that have been set forth.”
Do you feel like NASCAR is leading the way with getting back to competition for other sports?
“We knew a lot of other leagues would be looking at what we’re doing and trying to get back. You’re already hearing about the NBA talking about bringing guys back and trying to get to a certain venue. The arenas are a big part of what they do, and I don’t know all the business-side things that they do, I’m sure the team owners don’t like they won’t play in their home arenas. Them isolating themselves to a couple venues for the rest of the year, that’s probably something they are going to have to do. We are at an advantage because we are not a contact sport when it comes to human contact. We obviously have contact on the race track like we saw at the end of that race. We’re in a unique situation that sometimes the things that played against us are playing for us when it comes to social distancing. I think the protocols that have been put in place have worked well and I see everyone complying, which is great. That’s what is going to keep us on track.”
What protocols are you putting in place at home to keep safe?
“Not really from your family because – listen, my worry is I have two kids and they run a fever all the time. That’s just what toddlers do. I think they have a good program in place. When we get back here, it’s up to us to be responsible. Play by the rules in which our President and our government has put out there to make sure we are all safe and we’re seeing the results and numbers, so why change anything? Why be rogue and not comply by the guidelines that are set out for us. Things are working, we’re seeing trends going in the right direction. As a country, we should all want to stay and make sure we are doing this so we can get back to normal sooner than later.”
Do you have physical concerns with Sunday’s race being 600 miles after such a long break?
“There’s really not. I thought that I’d have a bit of a layover from not being in a real car for two months. I thought I’d have some back soreness and whatnot from Darlington. I spent most of my break here during the pandemic just working out a ton. I mean a ton! I definitely have gotten in the best shape I’ve ever been in during the course of my career. I haven’t had any ill effects. If other drivers had fatigue, then that’s good for me.”
What did you think of the Last Dance documentary series?
“It was just so good. For me, probably the motivation I had was watching the final episode about an hour before I left for Darlington yesterday. It definitely gives you some motivation to go out there and perform at your best and just seeing the work ethic that he (Michael Jordan) had was amazing. I’ve gotten to know him on a personal level. Special to me, I had a conversation with him last night about how it’s awesome to win at a track where his dad used to take him to NASCAR races when he was a kid and what ultimately grew his love for NASCAR, was going to a race himself. That’s why we always encourage parents out there to bring your kids to the race track because you’re going to create a fan there that’s going to be there for life and might be the next guy that’s going to go out here and win a championship. It’s good for us. He’s a great friend of mine, he loves the sport and I love talking racing with him sometimes. It’s amazing to see, I have to check myself sometimes knowing that’s the guy who’s my friend, that guy. It’s amazing, I never thought growing up watching him and his greatness, and I was a little too young to appreciate it at the time, but knowing that’s somebody you can always lean on to be there when you need him and be a friend and show up to your championship races at Homestead whenever you have a shot. That’s a good man.”
Are you in favor of condensed schedules with no practice or qualifying?
“I will leave it to the powers that be to determine that. I think we’ve seen there has been no effect to just showing up and racing. I don’t think that will be the thing going forward if and when things get back to normal, but I certainly think it shows do we really need to be at the race track for three days of the week, probably not. Can we condense things down a little bit, probably? All of this is an effort to help some of the race teams who are small businesses out there trying to save money. We don’t want to compromise the product. The product is the most important thing when it comes to making changes on schedules, cars or tracks or anything. That’s at the forefront for NASCAR – let’s make sure we have a good product and what does it take to get there?”
Do you do anything differently with your race prep considering the closer races and especially leading into the 600 miler this Sunday?
“I will, I’ll just load up as much as I can on water and some other fluids going into the weekend. I don’t think it’s going to be too humid on Sunday. I think there will be some overcast, it won’t be too bad. 600 miles is a long time for any race track. You have to take your physical health seriously and anytime you are dehydrated you’re not performing at your optimum level. I do my part and hopefully we’ll have a fast enough car to win.”
You weren’t asked to be in the Last Dance, were you?
“No, my relationship with him (Michael Jordan) is a little different. I don’t have any of the firsthand stories about being teammates or in the management. I just enjoyed the dialogue of the people that were there and hearing their side of the story and hearing how things went down. The video that they pulled has been around for years, but hearing people talk about it during that moment, this is what was really going on. That to me was the most intriguing part.”
How have you been preparing for the Coke 600?
“We’re excited because we were extremely fast last year at the Coke 600 and I think we blew three tires. Every time we hit the wall, our car just kept going faster – it was pretty amazing. Finally, the last smash into the wall killed it. Our car was so fast, I couldn’t wait to get back to Charlotte and we get to race two times on the oval there that I think it’s an opportunity to rack up more wins to be honest.”
What experience have you had with Chase Elliott?
“I think Kyle (Busch) handled it the best he possibly could. To be honest, he owned up to it and he knew he made a mistake. I knew I made a mistake when it happened. If you look back at my interview, he crashed because I ran into him. I looked at his back tires and they had no options. We’re talking about this because he’s popular and they were up towards the front. You don’t see Kyle Busch making that mistake that often. Everyone is cutthroat on the space right now. Even Chase (Elliott), he cut us off at least twice where we ran into the back of him and got some nose damage these last two events. I don’t fault him because everyone is fighting for an inch or two of space that you need. Kyle, when I went back and looked at it, he explained it exactly as it happened. He’s trying to fit in a hole because if he hadn’t given that hole behind him — behind the 9 (Chase Elliott) and in front of the 4 (Kevin Harvick) — he would get freight trained and probably go back to fourth or fifth before he gets back in line. It’s almost like superspeedway racing. He tried to jump up in front of the line, he thought the 9 had a faster run going, and he’s looking in his mirror and turns right and misjudged. It happens in our sport more than you notice and guys are pissed off at each other more than you notice, it’s just the two people that it involved are pretty popular.”
Does Chase Elliott need to do anything further to show there’s a limit?
“You can look at it a couple different ways. I would say if Chase (Elliott) were to retaliate, you know that’s intentional, right? We all know it’s intentional. What Kyle (Busch) did was unintentional. Now, is the score really even if one is intentional and one is not – probably not. The result might be equal, but it’s not equal as far as intention. I don’t think – I don’t know. I have a different philosophy as you well know. Me and Brad Keselowski had our differences over the same type of thing early in our career. Me and him would get into it week in, week out. His mentality as a young guy trying to prove himself in the sport was you can’t push me around, I’m going to stick up for myself. If you cut me off, I’m just going to crash you. While he did make it to the Cup Series, when he started thinking with his mind, in my opinion, is when he started to become more successful. If someone runs into the back of you at Martinsville, you don’t just back off and then go cram them in the next car, that’s why you end up with your nose mashed and hood popped up and never win a race at Martinsville. You have to know when to push back. I don’t think you have to because of pressure from your team or the media or whatever. The drivers respect Chase and they respect whomever it might be. If Chase doesn’t retaliate, no driver thinks any less of him. Every driver saw that Kyle made a small mistake, he misjudged. We don’t go out there and expect Chase to go out there and do anything to him. If he does, then that raises your eyebrow more than what Kyle did, in my opinion. I don’t think Chase needs to fight for relevance. We know he’s good, he’s talented and he’s going to win a ton of races. I don’t race him any differently. I race him tough, just the same as I did before I crashed him at Martinsville. That’s a sign of respect for me, to race someone tough. But, there are times when you don’t always have to race tough, you have to race smart, too. That’s what wins races.”
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