DENNY HAMLIN IN THE No. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET SCORED HIS FIRST VICTORY IN NASCAR NEXTEL CUP COMPETITION BY WINNING SUNDAY’S BUDWEISER SHOOTOUT.
HAMLIN QUOTES FROM VICTORY LANE: COMMENT ON THOSE LAST FEW LAPS. “During the second practice yesterday I realized, I knew, our car was good out front. The most important thing is that I tried not to make a mistake on pit road getting in or coming off. It was just one of those deals. I tested here in January and I knew where my limit was coming on so I took it to that limit. The pit stop the crew just beat everyone off pit road, plain and simple. I came in third and they got me out first and that was the winning move.” COMMENT ON TONY STEWART’S ROLE IN YOUR WIN. “I really felt confident as long as he was behind me. He came over the radio and told my spotter for me to just run my line and he’s got everybody covered behind me. So I figured he’s going to push me to the win but it’s not that simple. He made the move to the outside, he passed me, and I said ‘Well, we’re heading the back now. We don’t have any help.’ We just got that winning push down the backstraightaway with a lap to go and once our car was out front it was untouchable.” HOW MUCH WERE YOU LOOKING IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR? “Every lap. My hands started shaking more and more every corner it seemed like. I was counting down the laps. Mike [Ford] the crew chief did such a great job getting this chassis right. I told them right from the get-go that this thing handled better than anybody on the racetrack and it showed there at the end.”
More Notes:
Hamlin is the first Raybestos Rookie driver to win the Budweiser Shootout special event race.
Hamlin is the fifth driver to win the Budweiser Shootout in his first appearance in the special event. Other drivers to win in their first start: Buddy Baker (1979), Dale Earnhardt (1980), Jeff Gordon (1994) and Dale Jarrett (1996).
He is the first Raybestos Rookie lead a lap in the Shootout, holding the top spot three times for 16 laps.
Hamlin is just the second Raybestos Rookie to qualify for the Budweiser Shootout. The other is Ryan Newman, who grabbed a 15th-place finish in 2002.
In seven career NEXTEL Cup Series starts, Hamlin has racked up one pole and three top-10 finishes. His best finish is a seventh-place effort last November at Texas Motor Speedway.
Hamlin posted the 12th best time in Daytona 500 qualifying Sunday afternoon.
SELECTED DENNY HAMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE
MIKE FORD, CREW CHIEF, No. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: “We got a good restart with Tony below us and knew that was our only shot to win. He stayed tough. I think the 48 came up and gave us a push and we got to the front. He worked the guys behind him really well trying to keep them side-by-side. It was a very impressive run. I’m glad to be a part of it and I’m looking forward to next week with Denny.”
J.D. GIBBS, TEAM PRESIDENT, JOE GIBBS RACING: “It’s obviously a huge deal for us. We started last year and we were struggling on all fronts. The FedEx guys, we were having a tough time there tearing up cars. The 18 car was having a tough time and the 20 car was okay, not great. It was exciting to go through that process with all the guys that we built this team with, kind of go through the hard times and now seeing everyone here through the good times is a really neat deal. So for Denny to be driving late models two years ago and now sitting here winning a Cup event is really impressive. We keep telling him it’s not this easy, it’s not this easy and he keeps impressing everybody. We’re just really proud of him and Mike and the whole FedEx crew.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: SOME VETERANS HAVE COMMENTED ON HOW DANGEROUS THIS RACING WAS. DID THE RACING SEEM SCARY FROM WHERE YOU WERE SITTING? “Big time. I don’t know what’s left of the back of my car but that thing was beat in. What a lot of drivers talk about is that it benefits you more to run up to somebody than just kind of push them, not hit them. But there was some major hitting going on out there. I wasn’t complaining because when I was getting it I was up front. But a few times there were a lot of close calls. I don’t know. It’s the nature of the race. I don’t think you’ll see that in the 500. Guys aren’t going to want to tear their cars up like that. It’s the nature of the beast. As far as the race is concerned, I was just lucky enough to not have to use my front bumper, only the rear.” WHEN STEWART GOT PAST YOU, DID YOU THINK YOU HAD AN ANSWER FOR HIM ON THE RESTART? “No. I thought the race was over with. I forgot about the double-file restart. All I could try to do is stay right on his side to not let the air pull him, pull away from me. A couple of time he was starting to clear me and I’d get closer to his car and get that side draft and it was just enough to bog him down to wait on my help which was Jimmie Johnson to come and give me a push. I saw him coming in the rearview mirror at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour faster than what I was running. I was just hoping that he wasn’t going to make it three-wide. Instead he decided to push me on and clear me and there towards the end I think a couple o guys got beside me but I just held my line on the low line. I think Dale Jr. gave me a push there with one lap to go also.” DALE JR. LOOKED LIKE HE HAD A FULL HEAD OF STEAM ON THE OUTSIDE. YOU MOVED OVER IN FRONT OF HIM AND THEN PULLED DOWN TO THE BOTTOM. DO YOU THINK HE COULD HAVE WON THE RACE IF YOU HAD NOT DONE THAT? “You’ve got to do that because you’re not necessarily slowing him down as much as you’re helping yourself. I think our biggest problem toward the end of the race was pulling away from those guys too much. I think we had a three or four car length lead there at one time and you can just feel the further you get away the slower you go. When I saw him coming I more used it for my benefit to get the air off of my rear spoiler more so than do something to him but that’s the way you’ve got to drive these races. It’s 80 percent out of your rearview mirror and just used it to my advantage. It’s something I’ve watched him do many times.” NEAR THE END OF THE RACE YOU TOLD MIKE THAT YOU THOUGHT YOU RAN OVER SOMETHING AND CUT A TIRE. “I thought it was over with. I pulled beside Tony just to mess around with him and I was probably 10 feet in front of what looked like a front or rear actual bumper bar. It was a heavy-duty piece of metal. I said ‘I ran over something and I’m just waiting on it to ride on the rim.’ I got Junior to check it out and it seemed to be fine. We definitely weren’t going to pit. I probably would have run on four flat tires before I came in to pit.” IT SEEMED LIKE YOU WEREN’T AS GOOD IN TURNS 1 AND 2 AS YOU WERE IN 3 AND 4. “That seems like a characteristic of the racetrack. It seems like it’s tighter in 1 and 2. It’s one of those things where the air means so much you’ve got to put yourselves in the right position and you can’t get out there too far. I found myself plenty of times what I would do is time it to where when I got such a big lead when the caught me, it was in the corners and not on the straightaway. That way they had to make a decision: either they had to go high and risk getting shuffled out or they were going to stick with me. You’ve got to put them to that situation in order to help yourself.”
