Hamlin Records Career Best Finish at Darlington
 

This week the NASCAR Busch Series visited the oldest track on the circuit, Darlington Raceway. The “Track too Tough Tame” is known for its abrasive surface that chews up tires and its unique egg shaped configuration that challenges even veteran drivers to keep it off the wall. Denny Hamlin made his first Busch Series start last fall at Darlington Raceway and recorded a top-ten finish. The team was excited to see if Hamlin could repeat the feat.

For the second week in a row, rain played havoc with the track schedule. Rain washed out both practices scheduled for Thursday evening and moved it to Friday morning. The teams would have the challenge of setting up their cars during the day while racing at night. During practice, the #20 team fought a tight condition. As the cars qualified late in the afternoon, almost everybody in the field had moved to the loose side. Hamlin had a decent run and qualified in the 17 ^th position.

As the sun set and the engines were fired for the race, Hamlin was determined to work his way to the front. Reporting the car was loose especially coming off of the corner; drivers were challenged with a rare long green flag run. When the caution flag flew on lap 48, all the cars were ready to come to pit road for fuel and new tires. Hamlin had worked his way up to the 11 ^th position. After a quick stop with an air pressure adjustment, Hamlin returned to the track in the 9 ^th position.

After the restart, there was a quick scare for the #20 team. Hamlin radioed in that he had a bad vibration in the left rear. The vibration did not get worse so he dropped a couple positions but rode it out to the next caution on lap 66. Following the leaders to pit road, Hamlin wanted to get the car to turn a little better in the center. Crew Chief Cully Barraclough made an air pressure and wedge adjustment.

The next 50 laps saw some furious racing with the #20 car running as high as 8 ^th and as low as 12^th . When the caution flag flew on lap 118, Hamlin gratefully followed the leaders to pit road. The pit crew turned in their best stop of the night returning Hamlin to the track in the 7 ^th position. The remaining 25 laps were exciting but marred with three cautions. The final caution came with only 10 laps to go. Running in the 7 ^th position and 22 cars still on the lead lap, Barraclough had a big decision to make whether to pit for tires or not. He elected to stay out with the top nine cars, but everyone else came to pit road for fresh tires.
”It is one of those deals where we were on the bubble,” commented Barraclough. “I really thought that more cars would have stayed out especially those at the back of the lead lap. We only had eight green flag laps on our tires and chances were that there would be an accident back there as everyone was racing to the front.”

As the green flag dropped for the restart, Hamlin fell from the sixth position to seventh as Jeff Burton flew through the field with his new tires. But Hamlin continued to pull away from the other competitors. As the field took the white flag, the 60 car of Carl Edwards had caught the bumper of Hamlin. Driving it hard to the bottom off of turn two the 60 car had too much speed and slid up the banking making hard contact with the 20 car and putting it into the wall. Hamlin was able to keep the machine straight as the 60 spun to the inside wall. Hamlin finished in the seventh position on the same lap as winner Matt Kennseth.

I really wanted this finish,” commented an excited Hamlin following the race. “I knew Carl had the fresher tires, but I wanted to be the highest finishing rookie in the race and I was going to race him door to door for that. This is a career best finish for me in the Busch Series and now we get to go to one of my favorite race tracks.”