DENNY HAMLIN, FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: YOU ARE ALSO RUNNING THE BUSCH RACE HERE THIS WEEKEND. DO YOU THINK THE EXTRA TRACK TIME WILL BE AN ADVANTAGE? “I think that’s a lot of the reason you see a lot of these guys running Busch and Cup on a road course weekend and even other series to get that extra experience. I definitely think it helps. The only thing that it does hurt is that it takes a little bit different techniques to shift a Cup car than it does a Busch car. It’s quite a bit different.”

WHAT KIND OF A ROAD COURSE RACER ARE YOU? “I’d like to think I’m pretty good [smiles]. Until I went to Sonoma I never really struggled at road courses. We still finished 12th and that was bad day for us. I definitely expect big things for this team.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A ROAD COURSE ADDED TO THE CHASE? “With only two a year, I don’t really think that it should probably be in the Chase. They’ve got a pretty good balance of racetracks in that Chase so I think it’s pretty much good where it’s at right now.”

DO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD HAVE CHASE FORMATS IN THE BUSCH AND TRUCK SERIES? “I think so. I think the Chase adds so much to the Cup series. It kind of gives you a new season to look forward to in the middle of it. In the Busch Series it seems like the championship was set five races in so it was definitely hard. I wouldn’t really add any new drivers. Ten is a good number. It’s enough. I do think you take away prestige when you start adding more cars. Maybe spread them out a little bit more. I don’t necessarily think that it’s completely fair that probably going into the Chase, the 48 is going to be leading and he’s only going to have 50 points or so to the 10th-place guy. I don’t necessarily think that’s fair. Maybe spread them out 10, 15 points.”

DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE SOME INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CHASE THIS WEEKEND? MANY OF THOSE DRIVERS HAVEN’T LED A LAP OR WON HERE. “I’m probably one of them. I definitely don’t have very much experience on the road courses. We won the race in Mexico but things are a lot different. I felt like we had a really good car at Sonoma in the race. We overcame a tire issue in the middle of the race to finish 12th. This is definitely going to be one of those bullets. It seems like here and Bristol are the two that are really going to concentrate on not having any problems and coming away with a top-15 finish.”

HOW HARD IS IT TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE ON A ROAD COURSE? “The thing is not to run 110 percent every lap. The easier you take it the better your chances of staying on the course. This is a racetrack you can really get in a lot of trouble. It’s not as quite as forgiving, I feel like, as Sonoma is. We’re going to just try to do the things we’ve been doing all year long and try to get another top-10.”

WHAT ARE YOUR BUSCH SERIES PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR? “We’re going to try to cut back a little bit, try to run 15, 20, 25 races and just concentrate on this Cup car. We found out through the entire season that whatever weekend I could run just one series and concentrate on one I’ve run better in that series. I think it’s going to be a benefit next year just running one at certain racetracks. I definitely feel like it’s helped me this year for sure. It’s given me extra track time on tracks I’ve never been to before. On the other hand, there’s races like this weekend where you’ve got five minutes in between practices. You can’t sit down with your crew chief; take the time to figure out what’s wrong with the car. You’ve got to rush over to the other side. By then you either forget it or you loose track of where you’re at. It’s definitely something where we feel like it’s going to be better in the future to just cut back.”

AS THE CHASE NEARS, DO YOU FEEL NERVOUS OR ANY PRESSURE? “Not really. I try to just take it day by day. Being part of the top-10 right now is something that we did not expect. Me and Mike both talked and it was not on our goal list for this year to be in the top-10. We felt like it was an unrealistic goal. But to be there is just a testament to us, a solid race team. We get top-fives, top10s and we win races. That’s what put us here and that’s what we’ve got to do the next five races.”

HAS THIS SEASON BEEN KIND OF A DREAM? “Yeah, I’d say so. We definitely didn’t expect to win two races this soon into the year. But on the other hand, I expected to run top-10 consistently and that’s what we’ve done.”

IS STAYING ON THE COURSE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HERE AT THE GLEN? “You know, that’s basically all you can do is try to stay on the course and this is a racetrack that seems like it’s got quite a few more passing opportunities than what Sonoma has. It’s easier in some aspects and it’s harder in some aspects. I feel more confident here because I do have some laps around this racetrack and confident in what we learned in the VIR test. We should be pretty good.”

IF THEY ADD A CHASE TO BUSCH AND THE TRUCK SERIES, DO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD ALTER THE POINTS THAT THE CUP GUYS GET? “I think the points are totally irrelevant to anybody who’s not running the full schedule. If they didn’t give us any points it really wouldn’t matter. I can see where it definitely could be a change there. They’ve already cut back a lot of money to the Cup guys. What I don’t understand is I’m running the full Busch season, just like the other guys, but yet we get paid half in winnings than what a guy that finishes 30th but is a total Busch regular. It just doesn’t make sense sometimes. I understand just cutting back on the guys that are just going out there doing it for fun. The guys that are running full time, it’s hard to cut their pay.”