Denny Hamlin might be challenging Jimmie Johnson for a series title in 2010. That’s the latest coming out of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this week, as Hamlin recently notched his third win of the season at the Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington on May 8. Just weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL, Hamlin punched out his third win in three months at the Southern 500, becoming the first driver in 17 years to sweep the Darlington Raceway. Hamlin left Darlington after winning both the Nationwide and Cup Series races over the weekend, inching up the driver standings on his way.
Proving he might just be the one to give Jimmie Johnson a run for his money this year, Denny Hamlin left Darlington on one red-hot winning streak. Speaking to Mlive.com after the race, which he won after a final restart propelled him into first place, Hamlin downplayed his rising stature in the Cup Series. He said, “Nothing has really changed. We haven’t hit on any magic setup or anything like that. I think it just takes me and (crew chief) Mike (Ford) five races every single year to hit our stride. Something goes on during those two months that I have off that I forget what it takes to tell them the things to make a race winning car.”
While he’s using the same old racing style to propel his No. 11 stock car into the spotlight this spring, can Denny Hamlin hold onto his race-winning trend through the next stretch of the 36-race marathon known as NASCAR season? He’s currently (as of May 12) in sixth place overall in driver standings for the Cup Series, but that certainly doesn’t secure Denny Hamlin a place in the Chase toward the end of the season.
Hamlin’s main goal of the season is still to make the Chase and therefore qualify for title contention, and his recent win at Darlington has brought him one step closer to achieving this monumental task. After his Southern 500 win, Hamlin told USA Today, “I can’t tell you how excited I am about us winning now, because I know what our team is capable of (when) we hit Chase time. We’re kind of easing our way into it. We didn’t expect to have the success. We wanted to come on after Indy (in July) to turn the light switch on and go for it.”
It seems like – as of now, anyway – Denny Hamlin is already going for it. The 29-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing prodigy has already won three races this year, including the March 29 Goody’s fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville, April 19 Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas and, now, the Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington. His three wins so far in the season put him just one race shy of Jimmie Johnson’s four 2010 wins, and he’ll be looking to track down No. 48 in the upcoming weeks as NASCAR season roars on.
For racing fans with <a href=”http://www.stubhub.com/nascar-tickets/”>NASCAR tickets</a> to races over the next month, Denny Hamlin will provide quite the show as he battles for that coveted No. 1 slot on the driver standings. The month of May will round out for the Cup Series with races in Dover (May 16) and Charlotte (May 30), and all eyes are now on Denny Hamlin to stop Jimmie Johnson from snatching his fifth consecutive championship title.
Jenna Jay wrote this article, which is sponsored by StubHub.com. <a href=”http://www.stubhub.com/”>StubHub</a> is a leader in the business of selling <a href=”http://www.stubhub.com/nascar-tickets/”>NASCAR tickets</a>, sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and special events tickets.
