Coming back to the east coast second in the NASCAR Busch Series Driver’s Points, Denny Hamlin and the #20 Rockwell Automation / JGR Team looked to Atlanta Motor Speedway as a place to continue to gain on the championship leader.  Although several teams suffered tire problems at NASCAR’s fastest race track, Hamlin just suffered from the other teams who had tire problems.

Friday started great as Hamlin’s car was fast off the truck.  Running in the top five in speed, Hamlin’s car was a little tight getting off of turn two and he made slight contact with the wall.  Ending the first practice early, the #20 Team worked feverishly to get the fender back in shape in time for the second practice.  During that practice the car showed no ill effects as it quickly jumped back up the speed chart and ended the session with the fastest lap of the day by a Busch Car.

As a weather front moved into the Atlanta area, Saturday morning greeted the teams with cool temperatures and overcast skies.  When qualifying started, it was obvious the speeds were going to be quicker.  Hamlin posted a qualifying lap of 29.383, seven tenths of a second faster than his quick time the day before, which would allow him to start in the fifth position.

When the green flag flew to start the Nicorette 300, the sun had come out of the clouds and heated the air temperatures up around 15 degrees.  Immediately in the first couple laps, Hamlin radioed in that the car was way too tight.  Although he surged up to the second position, he slowly began to lose positions as the long run ensued.  With the weather affecting everyone’s cars, Hamlin only slipped back to the 10th position by the time the caution flew on lap 41.  Crew Chief Dave Rogers called for major changes including multiple rounds on the trackbar and removing a right rear spring rubber.

“It is important to get the car handling well as soon as we can,” commented Rogers.  “I knew we would spend a little more time on our stop making some many changes but the goal is to be the best car at the end of the race.  The spots we lose on pit road hopefully will pay-off in the long run.  I am fortunate to have one of the best crews on pit road and whereas most of the teams out there would lose 5 or more spots; this team can turn around stops with all these changes and only lose a few positions or come out in the same spot.”

Hamlin returned to the track in the 10th position and began his assault on the leaders again.  Getting as high as seventh position, once again the car began to become tighter as the run went on.  On lap 83, Hamlin followed the leaders to pit road for more service.  After another round of major changes, Hamlin returned to the track.  Following the stop, they noticed that Hamlin had cut his front left tire on a piece of debris and would not have lasted under green flag conditions.

With his car handling the best it had all day, Hamlin ascended into the top ten when trouble struck.  As Hamlin was running down the #39 car of Ryan Newman, Newman blew a right rear tire.  As the tire began to shred Newman’s rear quarterpanel, a chunk of his car flew into the grill of Hamlin’s machine and damaged his radiator.  Hamlin would be forced to take the #20 car behind the wall for extensive repairs but would return to the track 17 laps down from the leaders.  He would finish in the 38th position and drop to 5th in the NASCAR Busch Series standings.

“I am just proud of the car the team gave me today,” said Hamlin following the race.  “We were just biding our time and trying to the make the car better.  We were making gains on it during each stop and then just got caught up with something that was out of our control.  Next week we are heading to a short track and those are my favorite, so we will try to get some of the points back that we lost this week.”