Making eye contact with reporters, speaking in a strong voice,gesturing for emphasis, Denny Hamlin all but declared the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship was his to lose in the hour after he won the final regular season race Sept. 11 at his home track in Richmond, Va. His body language seemed to challenge anyone to believe differently. And five races into the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, Hamlin is every bit on track to back up the words.
He felt he could win or contend on every single of the 10 Chase tracks and, in the past, it might have seemed more bravado than measured confidence from the NASCAR "young gun."
But this is a different Hamlin. The 2010 Hamlin model says the proper championship mindset has at last matched his considerable talent. And he is doing everything he needs to do to give four-time defending series champ Jimmie Johnson a real run for a fifth.
Johnson holds a 41-point edge over second place Hamlin entering Sunday's race at the half-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, where the Tums Fast Relief 500 is being billed as mano y mano -- a heavyweight fight of sorts between Hamlin and Johnson, who have combined to win every race there in the last four years.
"People would think so, I would think so,'' Hamlin said of comparing the race to a title fight. "I feel like if it is mano y mano, we've been in a lot of green-white-checkers where we've been on the front row together, so it should be interesting.''
Much has been made of Johnson's uncanny ability to turn a lemon of a race into lemonade. Last week in Charlotte was a prime example. Johnson spun by himself, had trouble on pit road and ran as low as 37th at one point only to recover for a third-place finish and actually increase his points advantage.
Hamlin too, however, has proven himself capable of rallying from an imperfect outing, and his ability to calmly persevere has kept him on Johnson's heels.
"A lot of people like to give Jimmie a lot of praise for what he does and he deserves it, he's a four-time champion,'' said Hamlin, who drives the No. 11 FedEx Toyota. "But for myself, we've had to overcome starting worse than him pretty much every week. We've had to overcome crashes, things like that that's happened right in front of us.
"We've gotten spun out and come back to finish second. That's what we have to do. And I feel like we've executed really perfectly this Chase so far."
-- Denny Hamlin
"We've gotten spun out and come back to finish second. That's what we have to do. And I feel like we've executed really perfectly this Chase so far.''
Compared to his flashy, season-best, six-win regular season, Hamlin's post-season has been quiet and methodical. He's still contending for the championship thanks to top-15 finishes -- nothing extreme either way.
In fact, some have criticized Hamlin for being too conservative in his approach.
"I've wanted to be, but what I've been calling conservative is being conservative on re-starts and not putting myself in a bad position,'' Hamlin said. "I've pushed myself every lap, don't get me wrong. It's just that you minimize yourself on restarts by not putting yourself in bad positions. And I feel like it's cost me a few points at the end of these races.
"There's been a few little things that have happened on restarts that have kept us from getting five, 10, 15 points and I feel like that's just me trying to be cautious and making sure I don't give up 100 because that's going to be tough to make up on the 48.
"But the way we're running right now, it keeps him honest.''
In the Martinsville "Tale of the Tape," Johnson holds a 5-3 edge in victories since 2006. However, Hamlin comes in as the most recent winner, having won handily over his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano in March.
He also won this race last fall and it propelled him to another win in the season finale in Homestead, Fla. Ultimately, however, he finished fifth in the championship, more than 300 points behind Johnson.
This time around, Hamlin -- the preseason pick to unseat Johnson -- has kept the four-time champ much closer in his sights.
"I feel like I am in striking distance,'' Hamlin said. "I'm happy with it (position in the ranking).
"Talladega is such a wild card in the sense that it can go 100 points one way or another, of course we'd like to go into Talladega and have a cushion. But unless we go out there and lead the most laps and Jimmie has a struggle in Martinsville, that's probably not going to happen.
"So we just hope to close the gap once we leave Martinsville, then I'm going to keep him right in front of me for the entire Talladega race. If I'm going to get in a wreck, I'm going to make sure he's in it as well.
"We've got to just make sure that we keep him in our sights.''
And he added, "I'm not giving going to give it to the 48 by any means, because I know my potential.''
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