Motor Sports Update
Hamlin Scores Top-Ten Finish at California
Fontana, CA (February 24, 2007) — After a week long adventure in Daytona, the teams loaded up and headed out west to the California Speedway to tackle the big 2-mile oval. Racing a brand new car, Denny Hamlin saw this race as chance to build on the top-ten finish at Daytona.
With showers leaving the area early Friday morning, practice time for the Busch was abbreviated as safety crews dried the track. Regardless, the team was able to show the strength of their car by posting the second quickest time in practice. Hamlin backed his time up on Saturday during qualifying with a lap of 179.69 mph, good enough to secure the 4th starting position.
"I thought we had a shot at the pole," commented Hamlin after his run. "I kind of messed up getting into turn 3 a little and lost some time. We will have to see how the track changes once the sun goes down, but I think we should be pretty good tonight."
As the sun began to set, engines were fired and the green flag waived starting the Stater Bros. 300. Competition started early, as the field quickly went three wide. Hamlin got boxed in at the beginning but settled into the 7th position. As the run continued, Hamlin was running 6th when the caution flag flew for debris. Reporting that the car was loose in the corners, Hamlin followed the leaders to pit road. With several changes and malfunction on the refueling can, the #20 team turned in an unusually slow pit stop and returned Hamlin to the track in the 22nd position. Challenged with fighting through traffic, Hamlin made slow progress back towards the front. Climbing to the 16th position, Hamlin made his second stop of the evening. Making a host of changes and losing a tire, the #20 team suffered another long stop.
Hamlin continued to use the next 60 laps to claw his way back up the leaderboard. Entering the top 15 by lap 100, he continued to wrestle the car around the track picking up positions. On his final stop of the night, Hamlin brought the machine to the crew in the 11th position. This time, the pit crew delivered a 13 second stop and returned Hamlin to the track in the seventh position. After a quick caution, the field ran the final 16 laps under green. Hamlin battled with lap traffic, but in the end came up just a little short finishing in the 8th position.
"We were a little too tight in traffic at the end to mix it up with the leaders," said Hamlin after the race. "We kind of shot ourselves in the foot early with some lengthy pit stops, but the guys made up for it when it counted. We have had some changes in our pit crew from last year and these guys are still working on chemistry, but definitely showed what they were capable of during the final stop. This track is so long, that the leaders get away from you early and it is almost impossible to reel them in. The guys worked hard on this car and it was pretty good, so I am excited about the direction of intermediate program. We will use what we learned tonight and take it Vegas in a couple weeks."
Next week the Busch Series heads across borders as they go to Mexico City, Mexico for the TelCel Motorola Mexico 200. Be sure to tune as defending race winner, Denny Hamlin, battles Nextel Cup stars Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, and J.J. Yeley and international stars Juan Pablo Montoya, Adrian Fernandez and Michel Jourdain and road race expert Boris Said. The race is scheduled to start at 2:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcast on ESPN2.
