Hamlin Scores Career Best Finish at New Hampshire

Taking a break from the mile and a half tracks, the NASCAR Busch Series headed to the challenging one mile New Hampshire International Speedway. Last season, Hamlin scored an 11 ^th place finish in the Craftsman Truck Series Event at the Magic Mile. That past experience in addition to bringing the car that Hamlin drove to a career best finish at Milwaukee three weeks ago, the team focused on scoring their first top-five of the season.
 
With qualifying and the race on Saturday, the team spent both practices on Friday getting the car dialed in. Hamlin showed the strength of his car early, finishing third in the first practice. The speed carried over to the next day when Hamlin scored the 6 ^th starting position.
 
“The car handled really well,” commented Hamlin following his qualifying effort. “I kinda overdrove the corner in turn one and that hurt my second lap speed. The team has really given me a good car, so we will be patient with it and let the track come to us.”
 
As the race started, the action began immediately. During lap 2, Hamlin followed Jaime McMurray and Elliot Sadler into the corner side by side when someone ahead checked up and Hamlin made contact with McMurray, damaging his left front fender. Both crew chief and spotter reported that fender damage was not rubbing on the tire, but soon the car became extremely tight. Even with the tight car Hamlin was able to climb two positions to 4 ^th . In an effort to protect track position, Hamlin waited until the caution period on lap 49 to pit with the leaders.
 
Reporting that the car was tight, mainly due to the fender damage, Crew Chief Cully Barraclough called for minor adjustments while fixing the damaged fender. The lengthy stop only cost the team two positions and Hamlin restarted the race 6 ^th . As the leaders stacked up on the restart, Hamlin lost some positions early, but quickly came charging back through the field. After falling back to 8 ^th, he had worked his way up to 5^th by the time the next caution flew on lap 83. Concerned that the car was still too tight to race to the front, Hamlin stayed on the track and protected track position.
 
When the caution flag flew again on lap 98, Barraclough made the call to bring Hamlin to pit road. The crew changed four tires, put in a little wedge, and Gasman Jim “Jungle” Gilbert made sure the fuel cell was full before Hamlin left. Barraclough knew he only needed six laps of caution to have enough fuel to finish and was confident they would get them in the final 100 laps of racing.
 
Hamlin restarted in the 15^th position, but slowly started working his way to the front. When the caution flag flew on lap 119, he was running 10 ^th and watched the nine cars ahead of him drive to pit road for their final stop of the day. Knowing they could make it on fuel, Barraclough left Hamlin on the track. Hamlin, as the leader, quickly jumped to a 1.6 second lead as the fastest car on the track. Running conservatively, Hamlin continued to gain 2 tenths of a second a lap on the field.
 
As the laps winded down and the racing became more aggressive, the race was marred by cautions. In the final 40 laps, the field would be slowed by five cautions and one red flag. The first of these cautions flew on lap 160 and erased a 3.5 second lead. On each restart Hamlin would easily distance himself from the second place machine until the red flag period on lap 182. After a 15 minute red flag period, the tires cooled and never were returned to their earlier form. Shortly after the restart, Martin Truex Jr, the eventual race winner, passed Hamlin. During the green white checkered finish, the 60 car of Carl Edwards also slipped by. Hamlin would go on to finish third, his best career finish.
 
“We had a really good day today,” said Hamlin following the race. “I was doing everything I could, but those cautions kept allowing the cars with fresh tires to catch me. I would have liked to see the finish with two less cautions. The team gave me a great car today and had the strategy to win us the race. We just needed a couple other things to go a little different. This is definitely a big momentum booster for me & the entire team.”