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2008 NASCAR Tickets & NASCAR Schedule
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Hamlin Turns his Luck Around Posted:0535hrs
By Greg Engle,Editor, Cup Scene Daily For Denny Hamlin 2008 has been a season of bad luck and misfortune.
The week prior to that, Hamlin lost the power steering in his Toyota at Atlanta. At the season opening Daytona 500, a pit road incident took his team out of contention. It all changed Sunday when Hamlin won the Goody’s Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway, scoring the fourth victory of his career and the first since New Hampshire in October of 2007. Hamlin held off a hard charging Jeff Gordon over the final five laps picking his way through lapped traffic to win by two car lengths. “When things don't go your way,” Hamlin said. “You hear it from the veterans that have been around the sport for 10, 20 years, if you just keep having fast race cars eventually it's all going to turn around.” Jeff Burton looked in position to win his second race of the season; he took the lead after staying out on a round of pit stops on lap 393. But Hamlin did pit but took no tires only fuel. He restarted fifth and methodically worked his was through the field. Hamlin was finally able catch and pass Burton with 73 laps to go. The track position after that final stop was key according to winning crew chief Mike Ford. “We watched the truck race and Setzer stayed on the same set of tires the whole race,” Ford said. “And we knew that track position in that race was important. And it always is here at Martinsville. We knew if we could gain a couple of seconds over the guys that had tires, you know, from not having to fight as many lap cars, then we put the advantage back in our hand.” --(Cont'd From Front Page)-- Burton was able to stay with Hamlin as the laps wound down, but was held up by lapped traffic with less then 20 to go. The Toyota driven by newcomer Michael McDowell in his first Sprint Cup event held Burton up and that said Burton perhaps cost him the race. “I thought we had something,” Burton who was credited with third said “We started coming back on him and then that kid in the 00, he's going to learn some manners or I'm going to teach them to him or he can choose it however he wants it but it will be one way or the other." A Hendrick Motorsports four car pack led by Jeff Gordon looked to threaten Hamlin. Gordon passed Burton with seven laps to go and set his sights on the leader. Hamlin’s Toyota was able to hold the four-time champion off over the last two laps to score the win. “I was trying to figure out why my car had no grip out there the last several laps,” said Gordon. “Then I got out of the car and I understood why. Man, we were racing in the rain. I knew it was spitting on the windshield, but I had no idea just how bad it was.” Gordon, who had started from the pole, battled back from an early race incident to come home second. He had fallen as far back as 33rd after being caught up in an incident on lap 57 when Bobby Labonte spun. Gordon was part of the chain reaction of cars trying to avoid him and suffered some damage to the nose of his Chevy. “Our car was unbelievable the first half of the race,” Gordon said. “And we played some pit strategy that I really felt like was the right call. We took four tires as soon as we could make it on fuel, but the car never took off. You know, we started making some gains on those guys and finally got up to second place. So pretty good day for us, all things considered.” Jimmie Johnson, who like his teammate Gordon had incident when earlier in the race when he spun in turn 1 came home fourth. Tony Stewart who was never a factor among the lead group the entire race, rounded out the top five Dale Earnhardt Junior had another impressive run and finished sixth, while his Hendrick teammate Casey Mears had a solid day with a seventh place run. Jamie McMurrary who needed a strong showing to get back into the top 35 in owners points got his wish with an eighth place finish. Carl Edwards ran out of fuel on the last turn of the last lap while running in the top five but managed to coast home in ninth. Clint Bowyer rounded out the top ten. Kyle Busch who began the day atop the point standings suffered a transmission failure and was scored in 38th position. He fell four spots to fifth. Jeff Burton took over the top spot; Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Junior occupy the top four positions. For Hamlin the victory is the first Sprint Cup win in his home state of Virginia and the first of what he hopes is last of his bad luck, something he said goes beyond simply 2008. “This bad luck's been happening seems like for over a year,” Hamlin said. “When the Car of Tomorrow first came out at the beginning of last year, we had a position to win five or six races easily and just things never worked out for us. So it was like man it's been a year, let's get over it. The let's finally have something go our way. So yeah I definitely feel like maybe this is the turning point for our team, that, you know, we definitely performed better over time. It's just our luck's gotten worse and worse. So maybe the monkey's off our back. If it is, then I feel like we have a lot of confidence going forward. Because I know we bring great racecars to the racetrack each week.”
NOTE: I'm a one man show, not supported by anyone. If you wish to donate to help offset expense, it would be appreciated:
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