Hamlin Survives 'Horrible Day' at Kansas; Overcomes Pit Issues for Top-10
For Denny Hamlin, Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway provided a positive start to the 'Round of 12' in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, one significantly better than the opening round of the post-season.
Hamlin was able to bring his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry XSE home in eighth place at the 1.5-mile intermediate racetrack, a solid top-10 finish to begin an unpredictable three-race stretch that includes Talladega Superspeedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway's ROVAL.
After climbing from his racecar, the positivity wasn't necessarily radiating from the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, describing his afternoon as a "horrible day".
The overall speed in his racecar wasn't an issue, either, as Hamlin consistently had one of the fastest cars on the racetrack, especially on the longer runs. In fact, the root of the problem wasn't even on-track, it was on pit road.
Several slow pit stop sequences and small mistakes on pit road would continue to lose Hamlin tons of track position, which the driver was forced to make up on the racetrack again and again, only to be cycled back to the middle of the pack when coming to the pits.
“It was just a crappy day on pit road, and we didn’t get the finish that we deserved. This is a great opportunity to lock ourselves in and instead, we’re scraping and clawing to finish in the top 10," said Hamlin post-race.
Hamlin made seven scheduled pit stops during Sunday's 267-lap race, and on six of those stops (the exception being the first one), the No. 11 team lost spots on pit road. Plus, at the Lap 144 caution, the crew made a rare mistake, forcing Hamlin to return to the pits to secure a loose wheel.
"We should have won the race, we had the fastest car, but every time we get to the top-three the caution came back out and we would restart 15th or 20th," Hamlin said. "You can't show how fast your car is when you're back in then pack, all you can do is keep making positions back up to the front over and over and over and eventually you run out of laps and somebody else wins."
Then, when asked about keeping his head in the game during the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Hamlin made a surprising admission: "I'm not in it mentally, I can tell you that," he said. "There's a lot of wires crossed and bolts loose at the moment, but what can you do. I'll just do the best I can to drive the car and do my part."
It takes the complete focus of a driver to be successful in winning a NASCAR Cup Series championship, especially in NASCAR's modern-day post-season format. Hamlin has been chasing this for the last two decades, so if there are outside factors knocking the Chesterfield, Virigina-native out of focus, maybe this isn't the year like many originally believed it was.
Hamlin will have to eliminate the outside noise for the next two weeks, as he tackles Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL while attempting to hold onto the 11-point advantage he's developed after the opening race of the 'Round of 12' at Kansas.
There's a lot to overcome for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, but if he can survive the unpredictability of the next two weeks, then a bid at his first NASCAR Cup Series championship is very much still in the picture.
