Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Charlotte Motor Speedway – May 17, 2019
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media in Charlotte:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Is there any cause for concern based on performance the past few weeks?
“No, just different race tracks and ones that we knew we had concerns with entering the race track. Did we even have the right setup or splitter heights or anything. Really, our races have spun from getting behind in practice and not showing up with the car hitting the race track and things like that. Just some different race tracks as we go back to some of these tracks again, we’ll get more data and tracks that are similar, you won’t have that issue in practice and we’ll be a little bit closer when we get there.”
Does the sport still need a 600-mile race?
“No, nothing – the sport doesn’t need any particular thing. I don’t think that anything is totally necessary. If the race was 300 miles, you’re going to have the same, I believe, core group watch the race and possibly even more that are interested because it’s not five hours long.”
Is there any part of the tradition that you like?
“Tradition, ‘shmadition.’ It’s whatever. All sports adapt and change. I hate it when people say, ‘well, that’s the way it always was.’ Things are different. I’d be just as happy with a Coke 300 trophy as a Coke 600 to be honest with you. I’m for whatever, but I certainly know that from my friends, they choose to come All-Star week and not 600 week because it’s just too long and they don’t want to sit here for five hours.”
How physical is the 600 on you?
“It’s not that bad. The comfort in the cars now, they do such a good job with inserts and things like that, it’s not too bad. Now different aero packages, it does get pretty hot, but it just kind of depends. Humidity affects us more than actual temperature does. Definitely, to me it hasn’t been a big game changer and I don’t prepare any differently for it.”
If it’s 94 degrees next weekend with this package, do you expect that to be a challenge?
“It will be tough and it will be hot. I’ll do the same things I always do, I always try to hydrate as well as I can, but maybe you’ll take in a snack or something in the middle of the race, but I won’t prepare any differently for it.”
Can you compare the All-Star race with other All-Star sporting events?
“I think the other sports get the cities to really buy into it. I think it’s been in Charlotte for such a long time now that getting people to just recognize that the race is here, the races are in town is the biggest challenge. It’s just different, I’ve been to several other All-Star games or Pro Bowls or whatever it may be and it’s about the town. It’s in a new venue so the towns are really excited about it and really buy in and you see banners and billboards all over the place in the town. Here in Charlotte, it’s just been here for so long that it’s just stagnant a little bit.”
Did winning the second Daytona 500 make you more established?
“I’m not sure, that’s going to be for my peers to decide later on and my competitors. I’m not sure. I’ve been in contention to win so many 500s that it’s amazing we only have two of them. It’s the ones like the Coke 600, the Brickyard 400 that are really the ones I want to win to get those off the box that I want to check. I don’t know, the second one certainly was great for me because I think it does validate the first one. There’s been a lot of great 500 champions, but to win multiple, that list becomes a little bit shorter and it’s not by chance. There’s a little bit more respect that goes along with it.”
Do other competitors see a block like what happened at Kansas and consider it acceptable?
“I didn’t even think twice about it when I saw it from my perspective. The person who gets blocked always makes it a bigger deal than what it really is. I think the other competitors don’t think anything about it to be honest with you. We all threw our blocks at certain times and sometimes it’s not as dramatic as that, sometimes somebody would just run up to you and you choose to run their line and block them that way. It’s a less dramatic way of doing it, but certainly one where you go from high lane to low lane or whatever it might be. You are counting on the person either checking up or counting on them losing enough air to where they’re going to lose their car. That’s the whole reason you do it in the first place. I don’t think any other competitors have any other opinion about it, but I’m not sure.”
Should NASCAR mandate carbon monoxide detectors in the race cars?
“As a driver you have to take your risk at your own hands, I guess. I don’t know about monitors and things like that because certainly every car is different. The way it’s built when you do have crash damage, crush panels get knocked out and the levels will be different. I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but certainly if I felt like I was unsafe to anyone, I would have pulled off, but I was still making up spots at the end of that race even though I wasn’t feeling that well. I felt like still some work to be done and I was going to get better once the race was over.”
Do you feel the other teams are closing the gap on JGR and Penske Racing?
“Oh yeah, Stewart Haas cars are by far the fastest cars right now. By a lot, by a whole lot. It seems like as an organization, we’ve had one car kind of hit it the last few weekends, but as an organization we’ve struggled. We have not been very good. Really it starts with struggles in practice when we unload. I think that one of our cars have gotten lucky and hit it overnight, but other than that, I don’t feel like we’re the cream of the crop by far.”
Is JGR working internally to remedy that situation?
“We just need more data. We just haven’t been to these race tracks with this big spoiler on the car and splitter. It’s just throwing us for a loop personally. We’re showing up and our travels have been way off so we’re just struggling to get the data, but as we go to more race tracks, that data is going to get better and we can start to tune better for the race and that’s what’s really held us back.”
Could you feel a difference from how the All-Star car drove to the package earlier this year?
“A little bit. I thought it was just a little bit rougher with the splitter, but overall not a huge change from what we had. I’m guessing they said they were doing this to help with the cars in traffic. I think that remains to be seen until we actually get in the All-Star race and see how it goes. Certainly can’t say that I’ve noticed any difference on track so far.”
