Lost in transit
Halfway through Saturday's race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, driver Denny Hamlin keyed his radio. He didn't realize it at the time, but the second-year Nextel Cup driver was summing up his 2007 Chase results even though the 10-race NASCAR playoffs are only half finished.
"I just want to see the front tonight," radioed Denny Hamlin, who was running 11th at the time. "It is tough back here."
Then the situation got worse. Saturday's race turned out to be just like most of Denny Hamlin's season, which is turning out like a country song. If it wasn't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all. Running in the top five with 12 laps to go, he never got to challenge for the win. Instead, transmission problems forced him to run the rest of the race in fourth gear. He ended it drifting backwards in the field and finished 20th.
Denny Hamlin came out of the race ranked ninth in the standings, so far back that the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Chevy has only a mathematical chance at catching points leader Jeff Gordon.
In the vernacular of the shipping industry, Denny Hamlin has gotten lost in transit, been damaged and arrived late. He'd like to be overnighted into the 2008 season, so he could start over again.
The 2007 Chase has definitely been something to forget for Denny Hamlin, who entered the playoffs with high hopes. Last season, he became the first rookie to make the Chase and finished a strong third in the final standings. But Denny Hamlin started this year's stretch drive with a 15th in New Hampshire. Nothing bad happened in the first Chase race, but nothing good happened, either. The No. 11 Chevy just handled poorly the entire race, with a multitude of adjustments producing no improvements.
In the second Chase race, Denny Hamlin dropped to 12th in the points, the final position among the drivers in NASCAR's playoff format. He hit the back of Kyle Petty's Dodge, causing both cars to wreck. But the mess got even uglier in the garage area. As a helmeted Denny Hamlin sat in his car while the team worked on repairs, Petty showed up. He screamed at Denny Hamlin, slapping his visor. Denny Hamlin climbed out of the car to go after Petty, but crew members separated the two.
The spat didn't win Denny Hamlin any fans, as Petty is a favorite of the NASCAR faithful. The next week in Kansas didn't improve Denny Hamlin's status. Jamie McMurray and Paul Menard combined to put him in the wall late in the race. The wreck forced Denny Hamlin to finish 29th.
Even at Talladega, where Denny Hamlin finished fourth, he had an incident that tarred his image. NASCAR made him park his car during a practice session for being too aggressive.
Denny Hamlin's bad luck actually started before the Chase. Despite a win on July 1 in New Hampshire, most of the season has been about what went wrong. He had a decent shot to win at least five races, but if something could go wrong, it did. Parts broke, strategies failed to pay off. The FedEx team had a knack for pulling off a slow pit stop at the worst time possible.
Perhaps the lowest point of the season before the Chase came at the Pepsi 400 at Daytona when Denny Hamlin and teammate Tony Stewart had an impromptu meeting that resulted with both of their cars hitting the wall. The accident ended the day for both drivers and almost ended their relationship, until team owner Joe Gibbs forced the two to clear the air several days later.
Perhaps the best example of the little things going wrong came at Richmond in the final race before the Chase. Denny Hamlin raced in the top five for the first half and seemed to have a car capable of winning. But during a pit stop, his crew passed a water bottle through the driver's side window. While grabbing the drink, Denny Hamlin brushed against the kill switch on the steering wheel and his engine died. Though he had entered pit road third, he would come out in 22nd after losing valuable time restarting his car. He would ultimately finish sixth, but driver and team were disappointed.
So what's left for Denny Hamlin, outside of changing his luck, avoiding accidents and repairing his image? He has said that one of his goals is to finish in the top-five in the standings each year of his career.
"We know it would take some unbelievable circumstances to catch the guys up front with the lead they have opened up, but it doesn't change our desire to win some races before the end of the season," Denny Hamlin said before Saturday's race in Charlotte. "We have ourselves in a pretty deep hole now, but we'll keep fighting because there are positions to be gained."
And perhaps, with some luck, he could at least see the front.
