On Friday in the media center, Hamlin was asked whether he has room for another grandfather clock. His response? “I’m going to win it this weekend, I promise.”

After everything that happened at Fontana with not being able to race and the piece of metal in his eyes, Denny Hamlin is totally  focused on winning another grandfather clock at Martinsville Speedway. It should be no surprise based on his previous success at Martinsville over the years.

Hamlin got off to a good start this weekend as he led the first practice on Friday, before qualifying second behind teammate Kyle Busch.

“We really fought loose all during qualifying runs and just didn’t get it quite tight enough for that last one,” Hamlin said. “Tire wear is going to be big on Sunday and it’s something that we’re going to work on tomorrow during practice and focus on.  We got quite a bit of race run in today just in case it does rain.  We feel pretty confident in what we have for Sunday.”

Hamlin added that he knew when he was out in that second qualifying group that the run wasn’t pole-worthy based on how it felt and was surprised to qualify second. Hamlin attributes that to the fact that a lot of drivers are probably free right now.

“These cars are putting down more horsepower than they ever have so it’s harder and harder to get your car to come off the corner and that was what we fought through the two sessions,” Hamlin commented. “It got progressively worse from the second session from the first.  Obviously, just came up a bit short.”  

As a result of qualifying second, Hamlin will have to start on the outside for the initial green flag, which isn’t the preferred spot to be in. However, the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota is not concerned.

“The one good thing you can have is teammates up front that cut you breaks here and there and that’s what we’ve done a lot with the 18 (Kyle Busch) and the 20 (Matt Kenseth) over the last couple years is cutting each other breaks,” Hamlin said. “Giving that position back after you get going green because once you do get hung up on the high side you definitely are at a huge disadvantage over the bottom lane.  I would much rather be fifth on the bottom than second on the outside pole any day.  There’s a lot of time to make it up.  It’s just those last crucial restarts where you definitely want to put yourself on the bottom.”

Whether it’s starting inside or outside, Hamlin feels that qualifying up front is going to be very important not only for track position, but also pit selection as he feels there’s only four to five pit stalls at this track that are top notch. Though even with that said, he feels other guys, like Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick, can get themselves in contention despite their poor qualifying efforts.

“You’re same five to six guys are going to be in the mix no matter where they start,” he commented. “While it is critical to get one of those pit stalls that would be the only disadvantage. I’d say if we somehow qualified 30th the only disadvantage we would have would be on pit road. We could make up that position in 500 laps on the race track. Although it’s important, it’s not totally critical here.”

Over the course of his career, Earnhardt Jr. has come close to winning at Martinsville – but has yet to take home one of those Grandfather Clocks that the winner gets.

“We have had some good cars in the past here that I’ve felt like could have won races and we just weren’t able to get the job done for whatever reason, somebody was faster or whatever,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “Looking forward to having another opportunity. Just every time we come here we are excited. I love short-track racing. I love this track. I love the history of this place, what it represents. It’s a joy to run here and a lot of fun to race. It can be frustrating and you’ve got to battle all day long to maintain your track position, but it’s a good challenge, a fun challenge.”

Earnhardt Jr.’s challenge will be bigger than some of his fans probably hoped come Sunday as he qualified 26th in Friday’s qualifying session for the STP 500. While it can be a daunting task to do well after starting in the back half of the field on a short track, Earnhardt has accomplished the feat before. In October 2010, Earnhardt started 28th and drove his way through the field to finish seventh. In May of 2011, he started 26th before finishing second.

Earnhardt hasn’t been one to qualify strong ever at Martinsville with an average starting spot of 13.2, but has managed to score a top-five in 35% of his starts there. Not bad for a guy who hit everything but the pacecar in his rookie season on the paperclip.

While Earnhardt struggled in qualifying, teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon both qualified in the top five. Earnhardt said earlier today in the media center that if they’re struggling, they can use a program called ‘dart fish’ and compare what he is doing to what they’re doing.

“(We can see) how they are getting in the corner, how they turn into the corner, I can try to learn things that way,” Earnhardt explained.”As far as my teammates go I’m out on the track with them. I know their tendencies and it depends on how their car is driving and how their car is handling as to how they are going to run, drive the corner and approach each corner.

“Yet Jeff has a real good knack for finding out how to get his car around this place depending on how his car drives. He can change his approach to the corner and how he enters the corner to affect the speed on his car quite well here. Obviously Jimmie has got a lot of success here, but he seems to be very consistent in how he drives and deliberate in how he drives this track. They are definitely two guys that have had a lot of success here so you sort of tune in to what they are doing, how they are setting up their cars and what their comments are about their cars. You try to stay on top of that and try to understand how their weekend is going and try to use any of that stuff to your advantage for sure.”

Hopefully practice tomorrow will lead to Earnhardt finding more speed as the Daytona 500 Champion will need it if he wants to go after the win. Whether Earnhardt will be offensive at he end of the race and able to attack will depend heavily on how he and Steve LeTarte are able to adjust the No. 88 Mountain Dew Chevrolet.

“I can tell you though as far as being offensive, defensive, you are only as offensive as your car will allow you to be,” he commented. “I can attest to that over the last six years that if your car is fast enough you want to drive it as far as it can go. If your car is quick enough to be in the lead you want to get it there. If it’s not you go as far as you can and try to defend that situation and wait until you have an opportunity to improve the car.

“I don’t think I’ve ever raced here walking on egg shells. I think you can get in trouble pretty quickly if you do that. You definitely have to be offensive all the time and always try to be aggressive in how you drive the race track and how you race with the competition.”

If Earnhardt is able to grab his first clock, it’d mark a special moment for not only him but the Hendrick organization as they celebrate the 30th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports.

“They have always maintained their status as one of the top teams with a lot of growth and success,” Earnhardt said. “I think that is a credit to the people working there, management, just a lot of great decisions putting people in key positions. Understanding people’s talents and being able to maximize their potential just in management and other key roles in the company. Obviously Rick (Hendrick) has an influence on his employees. Everybody really strives from the top to the bottom to give their best. It’s a cliché but it’s so true when you actually get to work there and get behind closed doors and see the influence that he has just on individuals. Everybody just pushes so hard to do something good every day. It makes everybody else’s job that much easier. It’s just good reflection of his influence on the company as a whole, but yeah it’s fun being a part of it.”