Joe Gibbs showed he wasn't afraid to put a virtual newcomer into a Cup ride and Denny Hamlin immediately set out to reward Gibbs' faith.
Struggling to find consistency in his No. 11, Gibbs put Hamlin behind the wheel of the Chevrolet for the final seven races of the 2005 season. Hamlin responded with three top-10 finishes. Only twice did he finish outside the top 20. He even won a pole.
Up to that point Hamlin's NASCAR career had consisted of 36 starts, including the Busch Series race that weekend at Kansas where he made his Cup debut. His career up to then had resulted in one top-five and 10 top-10s in the Busch Series and one top-10 on the Craftsman Truck circuit.
Hamlin began racing go-karts at the age of 7 and recorded more than 50 victories in a nine-year span, including the first race he ever ran. All totaled, Hamlin finished his kart racing career with 127 feature victories, three track championships and two state championships.
In 1996 Hamlin finished in the top five in all five of the stock-car races he competed in preparation for the NASCAR Limited Dash Series. In '97 Hamlin won the Southside Speedway track championship in Limited Dash with four poles, five feature victories and 10 top-fives in 10 races.
Also in 1997, at age 16, Hamlin competed in the Mini-Stock Division and was rookie of the year at both Southside Speedway and Langley Speedway. In addition, he set a track record at Langley at 18.025, becoming the youngest champion at that speedway.
Competing in the NASCAR Grand Stock Division in 1998-99, Hamlin compiled five feature victories, 20 top-fives and 38 top-10s. In 2000 he was the Southside Speedway rookie of the year in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Late Model Division.
After a 10-win season in 2002, Hamlin posted 25 victories, 33 top-fives and 30 poles, winning races at five different tracks. He won the Southern National Speedway track championship and was the only driver in Southampton Motor Speedway history to win four consecutive 200-lap races. He finished the year with the sixth-highest NASCAR CPI rating in the nation.
Hamlin continued to excel in the Late Models in 2004 -- he had 57 poles and won 54 races in just 83 starts combined in 2003-04 -- before getting the call to the Craftsman Truck Series. In his first start, in August at Indianapolis Raceway Park, Hamlin started seventh and finished 10. His worst finish was 23rd and it marked the only time he didn't finish in the top 20.
In November 2004, at Darlington, Hamlin made his Busch debut starting 27th and finishing eighth.
Denny Hamilin Details