{"id":25165,"date":"2019-04-12T19:10:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T00:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25165"},"modified":"2019-04-13T08:52:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:52:29","slug":"denny-hamlin-leans-on-richmond-home-track-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/12\/denny-hamlin-leans-on-richmond-home-track-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin leans on Richmond \u201chome track\u201d advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jordan Bianchi, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

When Denny Hamlin<\/strong> rolls into Richmond Raceway it brings an air of familiarity, giving him a depth of knowledge about the Virginia track unlike any other on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> schedule.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Express Toyota. (Photo by Robert Laberge\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

That knowledge stems not just from Hamlin having visited the track twice a season for the past 13 seasons, but because the veteran driver and native of nearby Chesterfield, Va., — approximately 30 minutes south of RIR — attended many races here growing up. Sitting in the grandstands he envisioned one competing on the track himself, something he\u2019s now done 40 combined times across NASCAR\u2019s three national series.<\/p>\n

Hamlin will make his 41st start on what he considers his home track Saturday night in the Toyota Owners 400 (at 7:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). As he is every time he turns a lap at Richmond before a partisan crowd filled with a multitude of family and friends, Hamlin isn\u2019t lacking motivation to do well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great,\u201d Hamlin said Friday. \u201cI\u2019ll always love coming to this race track. It is home. It\u2019s one that I\u2019ve been to many, many times even when I wasn\u2019t racing. It\u2019s certainly the home track for me.\u201d<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/RIR_MENCS_HamlinAvailability_041219.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Perhaps in part because of his intricate knowledge that comes with Richmond being his home track, Hamlin\u2019s boasts a stellar record on the three-quarter-mile oval. Rarely is it that the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota is not either leading or up near the front. Hamlin\u2019s 1,659 laps led in 25 Cup starts are the most among active drivers, while only Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch has more wins (six to three).<\/p>\n

But that past success also brings the expectation that Hamlin should be among those vying for the win Saturday night, if not outright being the driver to beat. Yet, it is an expectation that he embraces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just exciting because I know that I very well could have a great weekend ahead of us and really focus a lot of my efforts on how can we go out there and dominate the race, not just win but dominate,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cThat\u2019s been the primary focus for the last five days and hopefully we put it all together for tomorrow night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I come home, it\u2019s a special feeling for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s last victory at Richmond occurred in 2016, and in the subsequent four races he\u2019s posted two third-place finishes and a fifth. Busch has won the won the past two races here and can become the first driver since Bobby Allison in the early 1980s to win three straight races at Richmond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly feel like I know what I need out of the car to be successful here,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cJust searching for that feel is really what you do every time you come here. Especially the races that we\u2019ve dominated here, there\u2019s that\u2019s a special type of feel that you have to have in the race car.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as if he needs another reason to feel good at his home track, Hamlin comes into the weekend enjoying the best start to his career, having scored two wins — one of which was the Daytona 500 — and seven top-10 finishes in eight races this season, and is only 27 points behind Busch in the standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur cars have been running really good,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been finishing really well and running really well every single week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jordan Bianchi, NASCAR Wire Service When Denny Hamlin rolls into Richmond Raceway it brings an air of familiarity, giving him a depth of knowledge about the Virginia track unlike any other on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule. That knowledge stems not just from Hamlin having visited the track twice a season for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[41,16,486],"class_list":["post-25165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-nascar","tag-richmond-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_HamlinOnTrack_031519.jpg?fit=3354%2C2233","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6xT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25169,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25165\/revisions\/25169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}