Blog: A Sophomore Season To Forget For Denny Hamlin
Although the NASCAR Nextel Cup season is still two races from completion, drivers and teams are looking back as much as they are looking forward.
Driver of the No. 11 FedEx Chevy Denny Hamlin is no different.
Denny Hamlin and his team had strong first two-thirds of the season, picking up one win and being in the position for other wins that never quite materialized.
“We’ve have had some issues that kept us from getting the finishes we wanted. Some of it was pit crew issues, early in the year. Some of it was speeding on pit road,” Denny Hamlin said. “There were a lot of different things that have kept us out of race wins—mistakes we really didn’t make last year.”
Denny Hamlin made the season-ending Chase for the Championship, but the team faltered once it began. Craig Wack, CommercialAppeal.com
Denny Hamlin knows all about it. These days he’s long been featured on the back page, for all the wrong reasons in a sophomore season to forget.
It’s an unwelcome change that comes after his fast and furious rise to prominence. Last November, Denny Hamlin looked unstoppable, putting the finishing touches on a freshman season that upstaged even that of teammate Tony Stewart. With two wins and a third place finish in the final points standings, Denny Hamlin’s inspirational story was the talk of the NASCAR faithful: fans rallied around the 20-something racing prodigy from Chesterfield, Va. whose family was once running out of money to keep Denny Hamlin’s racing team afloat—until the right people called at the right times. It was Carl Edwards, part II; the rookie could do no wrong, and the upward potential of his No. 11 Chevrolet seemed limitless.
