RACE INFO:
Event: Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500
Date/Time: June 6, 2010/1 p.m. Eastern
2009 winner: Tony Stewart
2009 polesitter: Rain
Distance: 200 laps/500 miles
Track Length: 2.5 miles
Banking: 14/8/6 degrees
Track Shape: Triangle
EXPRESS NOTES:
Hamlin, FedEx Racing Coca-Cola 600 Review: On a night already expected to be the longest of the season, Denny Hamlin and the #11 FedEx Racing team endured early damage to the FedEx Office Camry, making a long night longer as they were forced to work through significant repairs on their way to a 18th place finish in the Coca-Cola 600. With the name of the game being adjustability and track position, the team ran inside of the top ten through early pit stops, and then took the lead under caution on lap 65. As the race moved from day to night, Hamlin maintained his position in the top five, but a spin by Jimmie Johnson on lap 274 forced Hamlin low on the track to avoid contact and, in doing so, he clipped the edge of the infield grass, causing significant damage to the front splitter. The team took advantage of several pit stops to repair what they could on pit road but the damage was enough to keep Hamlin from challenging the leaders at the end. Lucky dog passes kept the #11 on the lead lap and Hamlin charged forward before the checkered flag waved to claim 18th spot on the night. The result keeps Hamlin in fifth place in the Sprint Cup standings heading to Pocono.
Hamlin at Pocono Raceway: This week will mark Hamlin’s ninth start at Pocono, 165th career Cup start, and a return to the site of Hamlin’s first Cup win four years ago and also a place where he’s won on three occasions and as recently as August of 2009. Hamlin led six times for a race-high 91 laps last summer on his way to a fifth-career Sprint Cup win. In the first visit of 2009 to Pocono, the #11 suffered a fuel pump problem as the field took the green and roared toward turn one. The failure sent Hamlin immediately to the garage where the part was changed, but after returning to the track and experiecing a similar problem, Hamlin was forced back to the garage where the ensuing repairs put him 22 laps down to the leaders. Unable to make up the laps, Hamlin and the team ran out the race in 38th place. In August of 2008, Hamlin posted a 23rd-place finish, an anomaly when compared to Hamlin’s prior average finish of 2.8. In June of 2008, the #11 team posted a third-place result at Pocono, marking a second consecutive third-place finish and the fifth time Hamlin has finished in the top-ten through six total starts. The August 2007 race offered some drama also as a rain shortened June race forced the teams to gamble and guess on fuel and, though he might have had the best car, Hamlin wasn't able to race for the lead and finished sixth. In July of 2007 Hamlin suffered through some early brake trouble but still managed a third-place finish. Hamlin’s first Pocono experience was marked by a memorable recovery from a lap-50 cut tire that forced Hamlin to spin the car on purpose before entering the tunnel turn. Facing substantial damage, the #11 FedEx crew took advantage of the long caution laps to make major repairs on pit road before sending Hamlin to work his way from 40th place all the way to the front to take the checkered flag. Returning only a month later, Hamlin led 151 laps to dominate the 500-mle race and claim a season sweep of Pocono as a Cup rookie.
HAMLIN CONVERSATION – Pocono Raceway:
Can you put a tough night in Charlotte behind you and look ahead or does it interrupt momentum?: “We’ll move past it quickly. It was a situation where we had a good car and we could have run well there but we had some damage and couldn’t recover. We continued to work on it and we made our way back into the top-20 and that was about as good as we were going to do on that night. It was still a good team effort to finish where we did. It was too bad because I felt going in we had a car that could be really good at Charlotte. Of course we like going to Pocono but there are no guarantees. We expect to be competitive because we have some history there and I think as a team we are bringing really good cars to the race track every week – but we don’t expect anything these days.”
What is it about Pocono for you and this #11 team?: "Pocono is really unlike any other track. The turns all have their own characteristics but they are all relatively flat and those are the kinds of corners that I feel I am the best on. Turn one is a very wide sweeping corner but it’s got a little bit of banking to it. So, you need to have a car that basically will stay up in the banking. The second corner, the tunnel turn, is very flat and it’s very fast. That’s really where you can gain a lot of time on guys. And you know – it drives a lot like a road course kind of corner. And the other corner is like a short track – almost like Phoenix in turns three and four - it’s very flat and very wide and it comes out sweeping to the long straight away. It’s a lot like a mixture of different race tracks, a track that rewards a guy who is very smooth on corner entry and I think that’s where it kind of plays into my strengths. Pocono is also tricky because it's easy to overlook how complex the track is and how fast you are moving. We had our spin there in that first race and it could have easily ended our race with just a little more damage and each year it seems like someone has a big hit so you can't take anything for granted at Pocono. If you lose focus it will make life tough for you.”
