While leading the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series field Sunday afternoon at Michigan International Speedway, Denny Hamlin reflected on how special the 2010 season has been for him and the No. 11 FedEx team.
“I just found myself thinking in the middle of the race it’s unbelievable how good we are this year and how good our race cars are,” Hamlin said. “I feel like I’ve learned a whole lot about how to make a race winning car and tell Mike [Ford, crew chief] the things that we need to make our car a race winning car and he does an excellent job transforming that on to on-track performance. It’s a team effort.”
As a team Technical Partner, the crew chiefs and engineers at Joe Gibbs Racing helped assist in the technical development, on-track testing, and continuous refinement of the Raybestos Racing Brakes packages and chassis parts – to help provide JGR entries with a competitive edge. Cars equipped with the Raybestos brake packages have now taken the checkered flag at five superspeedway races, and two of three short-track events. With the win at Michigan, Hamlin gave Raybestos brand Brakes, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, its SEVENTH NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in 2010.
Hamlin led a race-high 123 of 200 laps and his advantage over second stretched to 10 seconds at one point during the middle stages of the race. He was leading by nine seconds when the final caution of the race waved on lap 183 for debris. When the race went green on lap 188, Hamlin slowly pulled away from second-place Kasey Kahne and beat him to the checkered flag 12 laps later to win, crossing the finish line 1.246 seconds ahead of his rival.
After the race Hamlin was asked if he could recall such a dominating performance. “In late models I did but the competition level is a little different,” Hamlin said. “I’ve had days at Pocono like this. We never stopped working. Regardless of whether we have a 9/10ths of a second lead or a nine-second lead, we’re constantly trying to make our car better. I think we’ve got some ideas to improve our car the next time we come back.
“We’re not going to get complacent. Even though it looks strong, it’s not as easy as it looked today. Friday and Saturday [practice and qualifying] were somewhat of a struggle for us. We got lucky qualifying seventh simply because we went out early. We probably should have qualified 15th to 20th if we went out any later. We just capitalized and did everything we were supposed to do to win.”
Hamlin is third in the series championship standings, 47 points behind leader Kevin Harvick and 25 behind second-place JGR teammate Kyle Busch. The win was the 13th for Hamlin in 166 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He led the most laps for the second consecutive race and is tied with Kyle Busch (4-4) for the lead in the WIX Filters Lap Leader standings.
For more information on the Raybestos Sprint Cup braking system, or for questions on any Raybestos brand brake or chassis products, visit www.raybestos.com or call (800) 323-0354.
