Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (August 28, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media via videoconference in advance of the race at the Daytona International Speedway:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Talk about the special scheme that you are running at Darlington next weekend.
“Yeah, this is one that has been asked for us to run for a very long time. This is a throwback to 1973 when the company was started by Fred Smith. It’s the old Federal Express car. If you look at the numbers, the font is actually from when Cale Yarborough won Darlington that year, so it’s kind of a throwback to Cale and a throwback to the company of FedEx, which has been such a great supporter of Joe Gibbs Racing and myself for the last 15 years.”
Is your mindset different heading into the Playoffs and this race this weekend?
“It’s a little bit different this year. We are going to be coming into the Playoffs with more Playoff Points than what we have ever had. I think our team is performing at the highest-level right now, so everything is really good for us. I just think that we have got all the momentum we need. We will have the Playoff Points that we need and it just up to us to go out there and hope that we can execute as well as we have for most of the season. If we do, we are going to give ourselves a chance to win the championship at the end of the year. We are just trying to win every week we go to the track. That’s our main objective and then the biggest obstacle is to go out and win the last race of the season.”
How do you look at Daytona for you?
“I don’t know exactly what my strategy will be with Daytona. I want to give myself a shot to win, and I also want to – if I can help my teammates at all and have them have a shot to win – I need to be around at the finish. I typically try to race as much as I can up towards the front. I’ll probably try to do that strategy as well. You just never know. This race in particular seems to have a little more attrition than even normal superspeedway races have.”
There is so much chatter going on. Can you say if you are trying to invest or find an investor for RPM (Richard Petty Motorsports) and is your plan to stay at Joe Gibbs Racing no matter what happens if you have any involvement in this?
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t have anything to announce or to speak about when it comes to it. I think that I’m always looking towards what I’m going to do after my driving career is over. I’ve got some great partners that support me and my decisions in what I will do for years to come. So, I don’t know. I wish I had something to announce, but I really don’t. There’s a lot of things up in the air that are still getting worked on, but I just got – I’ve got to win this weekend and next weekend, and that’s where I’ve got to focus, but certainly I believe that, no matter what, my career will be with Joe Gibbs Racing and FedEx as long as I want to drive.”
Bubba Wallace has a series of tweets last night about what’s going on in the country and what some of the other leagues are doing about it. I know he indicated that there is no talk to not race. Do you guys have discussion about this and/or is Bubba, sort of, forced to be a spokesperson on this for the whole series?
“I don’t think he’s forced to be; I think he does it willingly. I think that the industry as a whole comes together when these issues come about and figure out the best way to address it. I’m not aware of anything that will go on this weekend. I know we are all planning on racing. Bubba supports that. I certainly think that the NASCAR industry will respond in the correct way. I’m confident in that. I know that those discussions are ongoing, even today.”
Do you think that you should race?
“Yeah, I do. It’s just my personal opinion. I certainly think we need to continue our discussions about social and racial injustice, and we continue to educate ourselves. I know I certainly educated myself by going to the Civil Rights Museum and putting action behind words that we said. So, I certainly believe that we are moving the right way.”
Can you talk about the battle you have had with Kevin Harvick this season? How much fun are you having this season?
“It’s certainly raising each other’s game for sure. Every time we have the most wins for a while, he matched it and then beat it, and then we matched it and he beat it again. It’s a battle and certainly I would love to have my shot at him on Sunday on that second part of that doubleheader, but we had that loose wheel once we finally got to second, but I would have loved to see how it would have played out but he was extremely fast and going to probably be impossible to beat with the speed he had. It’s certainly a lot of fun from our stand point. I’m sure that there are 36 other guys that are not as amused by it, but certainly I think that we’re just doing everything right, right now. We’re having cars that are fast. I’m doing the best that I can to prepare and give myself the best chance I can to win by putting myself in good positions throughout the entire race and just being smarter about things. I think that’s really helped with our on-track success.”
How do you get a leg up on Kevin Harvick at this point and put yourself in the best position to win in Phoenix?
“Well, I think it’s all going to come down to – we both have to make it through the Playoffs, but if we make it to the Final Four, it’s just winner-take-all, so I just hope that we’re better than him on that day or the two other guys. We are going to have to battle to get to the Championship 4. There are three other guys racing for a championship. I agree with Harvick when I saw his comments. You can’t sleep on the competition out there. I think that this is not a two-man race. I think there are many, many people that when the Playoffs start find a way to win and move and advance on. We’ve seen it for the last, maybe, couple years, the champion that wins is one that hadn’t been strong all year. They just won the final race and so that crowned them the champion. It’s a different formula now. You just have to play by the rules, and make sure you are the best in that final race, but with no practice, and no qualifying. I’ll cross my fingers that I’ve got a fast car. That’s all I hope.”
Do you have any regrets that the championship race is now in Phoenix instead of Homestead?
“No, not really. We did dominate Homestead this year, which was good, but I think Phoenix is just as good of a race track. We dominated Phoenix’s fall race last year. It’s a different aero package so things will be different, but we have the ability to dominate any given week.”
Does the Next Gen car make it more attractive to get into team ownership?
“When I look at my career in racing, I’ve been around for 15 years in the Cup Series. I always think about what I want to do afterwards. I don’t know that ownership will be it. I don’t know what my role will be, but I know that it will probably be in NASCAR in some kind of way, shape or form. I’m always looking at avenues that would allow me to stay in the sport beyond driving. Certainly, it’s a sport that I believe in. Certainly, the financial model hopefully will get better in the next few years for the team owners, regardless if I’m in it or not. But I don’t know. My focus has got to be on driving and winning a championship for Toyota and FedEx right now. If there’s ever opportunities to prepare myself for the future, then I look to capitalize on those.”
Talk about your relationship with Michael Jordan and just how his mentality has worn off on you.
“He’s a fiery competitor and a guy that tries to win at everything he does. I appreciate my partnership with him that’s going on 10 or 11 years now. He’s just been more of a friend than a business partner to me. We’ve got that great relationship and we are performing at that type of level. It’s fun to get texts from him each week that we are winning and even when we are not winning making sure that we know that he’s tuned in that week and he always questions our questionable strategy calls, so he knows what is going on and he loves racing.”
You won the Daytona 500, but it was obviously marred by the horrific crash with Ryan Newman. Thankfully, he is fine, but how much do you want to win to hopefully have a proper celebration in victory lane?
“Yeah, that was definitely a difficult situation for everyone on the team. We were really excited, and I was definitely really excited. I didn’t know anything was going on. When I get into victory lane, it’s just very quiet. You kind of knew that something was a little bit different, and when they came to the car and told me, certainly it changed our outlook and our celebration from that point forward. Daytona Victory Lane is a place I know exactly where it is. I think we’ve won about nine times now at Daytona in different Cup races, whether that be Shootouts, or Duels, or 500s. We’ve won there a lot, it’s just a track that I love to race at. I love the technique of it, the strategy of it and what it takes to win there.”
Are there any drivers in the rookie class that you feel like have stood out to you?
“Well, they all have at certain times. They are all good. I mean, this rookie class, when I think about it, is certainly one of the strongest rookie classes that we’ve seen since probably the class that I came in with (Clint) Bowyer and (Martin) Truex in 2006. You know you have got at least one of them that are going to be a part of the Playoff picture. I would not be surprised to see if any of those other two or three, John Hunter Nemechek as well, you can’t leave him out what he’s being doing. Any of them can win this weekend and put themselves in. They are all really good, and they all have bright futures. Especially from what I’ve seen on track, I think they have been really smart and strategic. You’re not seeing them make those big rookie mistakes that typically you see rookies make.”
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