1 week Ago By Brian Jones, 5 GOATs
Denny Hamlin just missed out on winning his third consecutive race, as he finished second at the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday. After the race, Hamlin spoke to FOX Sports’ Regan Smith about finishing second behind Kyle Larson. “You go to give that team their due and Kyle his due,” Hamlin said .
“Just a dominant performance. It looked like a pretty flawless day for him. It looked pretty easy.
It was all I had to try to keep up there. Glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota.” Hamlin also gave a touching tribute to Jon Edwards, the racing communications director of Hendrick Motorsports, who died last week.
“This weekend we’re all thinking about John Edwards, his family, Al Pearce, Shigeaki Hattori,” he said. “We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over this past week. So our thoughts are with them.
Yeah, wish we could have got one more spot. I just wanted to keep him honest at the end. That’s all I tried to do, but he was too much to handle.
” Despite not winning on Sunday, Hamlin and the No. 11 team have been on a roll. After a P25 finish at Las Vegas on March 16, Denny Hamlin has finished in the top five in the next four races, including wins at Martinsville and Darlington.
Denny Hamlin talks about his ‘great run’ “It’s been a great run here over the last month, Hamlin said. “We’ve been really good, just got to continue this momentum, and it all starts tomorrow. You go back to work and you figure out how you can get just a little bit better.
” Hamlin has accomplished a lot in his NASCAR career, but the one thing he hasn’t done is win a championship as a driver. He will need to continue to have strong finishes to win the regular season championship. And when it comes to the playoffs, the best thing for Hamlin to do is win one race in each of the rounds to secure a spot in the Championship 4 in November.
Before the race at Bristol, Hamlin, who is 44 years old, talked about how long he wants to race at a high level. “I think people like Harvick, I think he was 48 when he retired. Like, he was still on top of his game as far as I was concerned,” Hamlin said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports.
“I think it’s different for everyone. Others you’ve seen get to 43 or 44 and the light switch goes off. You just never know.
My drive is still there, and obviously, the performance is still there. I’m gonna try to just win all I can this window while it is still there.” This article first appeared on 5 GOATs and was syndicated with permission.
.
