{"id":20551,"date":"2018-07-20T15:50:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T20:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20551"},"modified":"2018-07-22T17:02:17","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T22:02:17","slug":"denny-hamlin-looking-for-season-turnaround-with-repeat-victory-at-loudon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/20\/denny-hamlin-looking-for-season-turnaround-with-repeat-victory-at-loudon\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin looking for season turnaround with repeat victory at Loudon"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Defending New Hampshire Motor Speedway race winner Denny Hamlin<\/strong> is hoping that the good vibes and his excellent record at the track will translate into a positive season turnaround this weekend.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Freight Toyota, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 21, 2018 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The perennial Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship player is smarting from a rough month of competition \u2013 multiple races starting from the rear of the grid and disappointing results at the checkered flag. Disappointing for this No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team that is far more accustomed to hoisting trophies and challenging in the playoffs than overcoming the kind of early season start he\u2019s had this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last month has probably been one of the toughest in my years (at the Cup level),\u2019\u2019 Hamlin, 37, said Friday afternoon. \u201cIt\u2019s just been really bad results. Not that we\u2019ve necessarily run bad or had bad speed, just terrible results. \u2026 We need to start winning right now, running the top-five, leading more laps and get to work on this season and try to make sure that we put ourselves in contention at the end.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

His confidence \u2013 in himself and veteran team – still remains high, no matter the frustrating summer showings. He\u2019s started 36th<\/sup> or worse in two of the last four races \u2013 and racing from the rear of the field automatically creates a daunting challenge. Yet his talent and the team\u2019s effort has kept him solidly among the playoff field. He\u2019s ranked ninth heading into Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Hamlin has a healthy 10 top-10 finishes through the opening 19 races \u2013 a better than 50 percent yield. He has six top-fives as well \u2013 including a season best three third place efforts (Daytona, Richmond, Charlotte). He\u2019s had only two top-10s in the last six races, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how many points those other guys accrue,\u2019\u2019 Hamlin said. \u201cIf we can win at Texas, Phoenix or Martinsville \u2013 we\u2019re part of the Championship Four and could easily knock one of those guys out and all the hard work that they\u2019ve put in through the entire year.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s Foxwoods Casino 301 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is prime opportunity. And Hamlin knows it.<\/p>\n

He is in elite company as a three-time race winner (2017, 2012, 2007) at the \u201cMagic Mile.\u201d  No active driver has won at the track more. He has three top-10 finishes in the last five races and hasn\u2019t started worse than seventh since 2013.<\/p>\n

But Hamlin comes into the race feeling understandably a bit behind on the season. Three drivers \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch (five), Stewart-Haas Racing\u2019s Kevin Harvick (five) and fellow Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. (four) have won 14 of the 19 races thus far.<\/p>\n

Truex, in particular, has been brilliant at New Hampshire, but winless despite leading a series best 513 laps in the last four races here. Hamlin knows he\u2019s got to step up his game and step it up now.<\/p>\n

He fully admits he\u2019s ready to have his name thrown into the championship favorite mix \u2013 the party crasher to the \u201cBig Three\u201d getting all the early season attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve been at that level to even be talked about at this point,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to get better in a lot of different aspects. It\u2019s agitating knowing that we\u2019re capable of doing that if we put everything together, but until we do it, they deserve all the press they\u2019ve gotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this could be the week Hamlin inserts himself in the mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly when you come to these race tracks, for us personally, it feels like this is a track that we certainly can win at and I\u2019ve got a great feel for it no matter where we\u2019re running or what cars that we\u2019re running,\u2019\u2019 Hamlin said. \u201cCertainly from my aspect, there\u2019s not an advantage, but there\u2019s certainly a level of comfort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you come here, you know exactly what you\u2019re looking for.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Defending New Hampshire Motor Speedway race winner Denny Hamlin is hoping that the good vibes and his excellent record at the track will translate into a positive season turnaround this weekend. The perennial Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship player is smarting from a rough month of competition \u2013 multiple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,466],"class_list":["post-20551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-new-hampshire-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/356865.jpg?fit=2777%2C1852&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5lt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20555,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551\/revisions\/20555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}