With a masterclass performance at Pocono Raceway, Denny Hamlin cemented his name alongside one of NASCAR’s all-time icons. By taking the checkered flag from the front row, Hamlin became the first NASCAR Cup Series driver since Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip in 1981 to win from the pole position three weeks in a row.
Despite sweeping the weekend, Hamlin admitted that he left Saturday’s practice session initially convinced that his Joe Gibbs Racing team lacked raw speed. When asked about matching Waltrip’s iconic record, Hamlin said (via asapsports):
Thanks for the submission!
“I mean, it’s fun. Truthfully when my balance was as far off as it was yesterday in practice, and we were still I think second fastest. Truthfully when I looked at the lap time, I thought we were in a different second bracket. Oh, shit, I’m half a second off of [Tyler]Reddick.”
Hamlin revealed that his dominant weekend almost caught him completely off guard due to a hilarious misread of the practice charts. He assumed Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota was faster than his. However, it was the other way round. He continued:
“When I was watching him in practice, Damn, the 45 is really fast. I call those guys practice Jesuses anyway. I thought that they had the car. I mean, they backed it up with a really strong performance after qualifying in the teens.”
“So when I had that kind of speed and I knew I still had some room to gain with my car, that’s where I was like, Okay, I need to qualify well, that’s step one, and then I need to have a good execution race, and that will be step two.”
By executing both steps perfectly, Denny Hamlin secured his 64th career victory and etched his name in NASCAR’s all-time win list at ninth.
Denny Hamlin prioritizes wins over points as he passes Kyle Busch in NASCAR’s all-time win list
Reflecting on the milestone, the driver of the Denny Hamlin opened up about a major shift in his competitive philosophy. In his media interaction after the Pocono win, the Toyota driver said:
“To me, it’s like wins, wins, wins. What is your win percentage? That’s what I really, really am trying to continue on a run. I mean, you always have aspirations to win 36 out of 36 races in a given season. You know it’s not going to happen. But we’ve had so many races where we’ve been dominant this year.”
While Denny Hamlin has collected four points-paying wins so far this year, he believes the No. 11 garage has possessed the raw speed to have a much higher win total.
So far, apart from his four wins, Hamlin has accumulated nine top fives and 11 top-10 finishes in 16 starts.
Edited by Sashwat Deo