CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Last year, Denny Hamlin did everything right.
After winning from the pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway under the elimination Playoff format, Hamlin had nearly three weeks to prepare for the Championship 4 Race at Phoenix—and he used every minute of it.
He studied meticulously. Hamlin went so far as to try his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates’ setups in the simulator to broaden his approach to a track that historically was not his best.
The effort paid off. Starting from the pole, Hamlin dominated the race, winning the second stage and leading 208 laps. With four circuits left, he was cruising toward his long-awaited first NASCAR Cup Series championship when fate intervened in the form of William Byron’s blown tire.
The resulting caution sent the race to overtime, and after taking four tires, Hamlin was trapped in traffic during the two-lap shootout and finished sixth, losing the title to Kyle Larson, who came home third without leading a lap.
With the postseason format returning to a 10-race Chase this season, Hamlin enters as the top seed with four victories to his credit. He starts the Chase with a 25-point lead over second-seeded Ryan Blaney, but he won’t have the luxury of extensive preparation this year.
“I think it’s harder—I do,” Hamlin said of the 10-race Chase. “It’s simply because there’s not going to be any opportunity for me to take two weeks and study for one race track. It’s not physically possible. Now, there’s an opportunity for me to spend a little bit more time on these last 10, which I will do, but it will never reach the depths in which I worked for Phoenix last year.
“It’s just simply because there’s no weekends to take off. Maybe Talladega, because there’s not really much studying that goes into that one. But, yeah, that’s why I said I never could imagine going through that process again that I went through preparing for that one race.”
The Chase opens Sunday with the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway (5 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “The Track Too Tough to tame” is a misnomer where Hamlin is concerned. The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has five wins and 14 top fives in 28 starts there.
-NASCAR Wire Service
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