Hamlin Scores Top-Ten at Texas

With the Busch Series season winding down, the circuit headed to Texas Motor Speedway to begin its final three races of the season.  The location of Denny Hamlin’s first Busch Series pole, the track provided the team with plenty of confidence as they attacked one of the fastest tracks on the circuit.

The first practice session proved to be a challenge.  Although the #20 Rockwell Automation Chevrolet handled extremely well, the speed was just not showing on the chart.  The team made a host of changes in between practices but just could not crack the top-ten on the speed chart.  The struggles continued into qualifying as the car could only muster enough speed to secure the 17th starting position.

Confident that they had a better race car than qualifying car, the teams lined up for the start of the race.  Early on, Hamlin quickly charged to the front.  Up to the 11th position by lap 5, the sun broke out of the clouds and the #20 car became loose.  Falling back to the 12th position by the caution period on lap 30, Hamlin followed the leaders to pit road.  With a quick stop for four tires, Hamlin returned to the track in the 11th position.  As the race restarted, Hamlin found himself as high as 9th and as far back at 15th.  Challenged with a car that seemed to get looser on each lap, Crew Chief Dave Rogers called for major changes during the next stop.  During the lap 79 caution, the #20 pit crew put in a spring rubber and went up two rounds on the trackbar.  Little did the team know that would be their last caution flag of the day.

As the race restarted, Hamlin called in that the changes were good, but he still needed more.  As the long green flag run continued, Hamlin had dropped back to the 16th position and a half a lap down to the leaders when Crew Chief Dave Rogers called him to pit road for a scheduled stop.  This time changing four tires, filling with fuel and adding two rounds of wedge, the #20 car returned to the track.  As the long green flag run continued, Hamlin began picking up positions.  By the race end, Hamlin had worked his way up to 8th and race winner Kevin Harvick was never able to put him a lap down even though he stared at the bumper of the #20 car for the final 35 laps.

“Our car was really good by the end of the race,” commented Hamlin following the race.  “We just needed a caution to bunch the field back up and help us make up our 20 second deficit.  We spent the last quarter of the race running laps as fast as or faster than the leader.  We are able to make up 10 seconds on the field and were one of the few cars still on the lead lap.  Who would have thought we would have been able to run over half the race under green?”