Denny Hamlin took his seat at the podium in the deadline room at Phoenix Raceway, after another championship got away.
“I really don’t have much for emotion right now,” he said. “Just numb about it ’cause just in shock. That’s about it.”
Three laps.
Hamlin was three laps away from his first NASCAR Cup Series championship. He dominated the race at Phoenix Raceway. He led a race high of 208 laps and won the second stage. He often led by 2.5 to three seconds. After years of trying, years of frustration, it looked like the stars finally aligned for Hamlin and Sunday was going to be the day.
Then William Byron cut a tire.
But Hamlin thought the situation was still OK.
“I thought, ‘Well, all right, let me see where the other guys are at,'” he said. “‘Surely they can’t jump too far in front of me.'”
With tire wear playing a role, Sunday, Hamlin led all but three drivers down pit road. He took four tires, while Kyle Larson took two. He didn’t think many cars would take two.
“It’s really hard to predict how many cars are going to do what, things like that.”
In the end, two tires was the winning call. Ryan Blaney edged out Brad Keselowski at the line to win the race. Hamlin, who lined up two rows behind Larson, couldn’t reel him in and finished runner-up in points to Larson, who collected his second Bill France Cup.
Hamlin wiped his face with a rag and sat in his car with a dejected look on his face. He said there was “nothing I can do different.”
“Prepared as good as I could coming into the weekend,” he said. “My team gave me a fantastic car. Just didn’t work out. I was just praying that no caution. Had one there.”
Afterwards, consoled with his daughters, who were crying on pit road. He told them what happened was “something we can’t control.”
“You know, certainly unfortunate circumstances,” he said. “One of those life lessons years down the road.”
Afterwards, he hopped into his golf cart and rode away.
