Hamlin Scores Fourth Pole and Moves to Third in Points

Coming off a solid top-five finish at Nashville and Denny Hamlin’s first Cup win at Pocono, the #20 Rockwell Automation / JGR Busch Team headed to the mile and a half track at Kentucky Speedway.  This week had another double-duty schedule in store for Hamlin and it was up to the entire #20 team to ensure that the Rockwell Automation Chevrolet would be a contender.  

As in Nashville the week before, Joe Gibbs Racing called on driver Kertus Davis to assist the #20 team in setting up the car during first practice Friday night.  By the end of first practice, Davis had the car running at the fifth fastest time on the track.  Hamlin would arrive in time to take the car out for second practice and was able to shake the car down and have it running fourth by the end of second practice.  The team was confident in the setup and looked forward to qualifying the next day.

With a qualifying lap of 30.376 seconds at 177.772 mph, Hamlin knocked Reed Sorenson off the provisional pole and his speed outlasted several top competitors such as Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and eventual race winner David Gilliland. After a couple near misses, the #20 team was awarded its fourth Busch Pole Award of the 2006 campaign.    

“The car felt great,” commented Hamlin following his lap.  “I can’t thank Kertus Davis and Dave Rogers enough for giving me a good, balanced car.  I only had a small amount of time to practice, but when I got in it the car was close to perfect.  We should be pretty good tonight, but it will be interesting to see what the track does when the sun goes down.”

As the green flag dropped on the Meijer 300 Saturday evening, it was evident that the #20 machine would be in a dog fight for the majority of the night. In a race where the yellow flag was flown a record-tying ten times and thunderstorms were prevalent in the area, pit stops and strategy would be the name of the game. By lap 23, Hamlin had surrendered the lead, and during the lap 26 caution pit stops the team worked on fixing a tight condition that would plague the car all night.  The stop called for a round on the track bar and an air pressure adjustment to try to aide the “plowing” car.  

Hamlin continued to run inside the top-five for the majority of the night, and only in a slight pit stop miscue involving a dropped lug during lap 134 did he drop back as far as seventh.  As Hamlin hammered back into the top-five, some superb racing was displayed by NASCAR’s finest.  Hamlin found himself in the middle of a four-wide battle for second position down the backstretch on lap 151 and by lap 174 the #20 was fighting off the #84 and #1 in three-wide racing into Turn 1.  By lap 190, Hamlin was running third behind teammate J.J. Yeley and rookie David Gilliand. A late caution flew leaving a six lap shootout to determine the winner.  The restart had all three cars racing side by side towards Turn 1.  Unfortunately, the same tight condition that the team had spent three pit stops trying to right was still keeping Hamlin from exiting turns at his quickest.  The team would hold onto their third place finish, their sixth top-five finish for the season.  The quality run on Saturday night propelled the #20 team into third place in Busch Series Driver Points and brought Denny Hamlin within 413 points of series leader Kevin Harvick.    

“It is hard to be disappointed with a third place finish, but I think we were capable of winning,” commented Hamlin following the race.  “We just were a little too tight at the end to make a run at them.  The #84 car was on a rail, so even if I caught him, I don’t know if I could have passed him.  I was kind of hoping J.J (Yeley) would have gotten side by side with him & we could have benefited from it.  However, it is a second & third place finish for JGR, so that is not too bad.”

With another top-five finish in the NASCAR Busch Series, the #20 team heads to Milwaukee, the global headquarters of Rockwell Automation.  The AT&T 250 will be raced at the oldest track on the Busch Series Circuit, the historic Milwaukee Mile, at 9:00 pm. EST and will be broadcasted on FX.