DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Denny Hamlin's "return home" to Richmond Raceway got off to a rough start Friday, but the three-time winner at the track smiled and remained optimistic about his chances come Saturday night’s green flag.
The Joe Gibbs Racing team was hard at work on Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota from Friday’s opening practice at the three-quarter-mile track, trying to get it properly prepped for the Toyota Owners 400 (6:30 p.m. ET; Fox, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
By the time Hamlin faced the media Friday afternoon after practices and before qualifying, he was disappointed in the day’s rough start but remained absolutely hopeful about the race.
RICHMOND LINEUP: Truex on pole; Kyle Busch slips to 32nd
“Obviously, it’s super frustrating from my standpoint and it is for them [his team], too," Hamlin said. “They don’t want to have to completely rebuild a car while they are at a race track. We are trying to figure it out. We’re trying to get between some teammates. We can get there here with some of our teammates, but we can’t on other things. I don’t know.
“It could be a really good race for us, it can also be really bad. I’m really not sure how it’s all going to turn out. I’m not sure with qualifying if it will be indicative of anything we have going on, but we’ll see how it all pans out. We’ll try everything we can to make the right decisions for tomorrow.”
Hamlin qualified fourth for the race.
RICHMOND LIVE BLOG: Live updates from the Toyota Owners 400.
The good news is that Hamlin has always been good at Richmond. His three wins at the track are second only to JGR teammate Kyle Busch’s four, and his 1,653 laps led are tops among all his competition this weekend. He hasn’t finished worse than sixth in the last five races there, including a win in September 2016 from the pole.
The past success, along with his local ties to the area — he grew up in Chesterfield, Va. — make Richmond a place Hamlin always looks forward to racing. He is vastly popular in the area; he held a hugely successful short-track event at nearby Langley Speedway on Thursday night to raise money for charities he supports.
“We've been more hit and miss,” Hamlin said. “We were competitive one race here last year and the other one, not so much. It’s really feast or famine for us here at this race track.”
Hamlin enters the race eighth in the championship standings, but he hasn’t had a top-10 in the last three races. A crash at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago left him with a 34th-place finish, and he was 11th at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in Monday’s rain-delayed race.
That follows an incredible season start when he scored top-five finishes in three of the first four races, including a third in the Daytona 500, and four top-10s in the first five.
Richmond presents exactly the kind of opportunity Hamlin wants and needs to put his season back on a title contention trajectory.
“I was really optimistic coming here that we were going to start pretty quick and the way our cars ran at Phoenix, everything is fairly similar with the cars," Hamlin said, noting his fourth-place finish in Arizona.
“Like I said, here today was a struggle, where Phoenix was pretty easy for us. A disappointing start to our weekend, for sure, but it doesn’t hamper what we expect for [Saturday] night. I’m hoping we get it all figured out and we’re competitive enough as we should be here.”
Asked about his success in the spring vs. fall races at Richmond, Hamlin again smiled, acknowledging all his victories have come in the fall. He said he had no logical explanation for that, except to note he typically gets better as the season goes.
“I think typically I’ve been a driver who has gotten stronger as the year goes on," he said. “That hasn’t changed for 13 or 14 years I’ve been doing this and the stats will back this up.
“I’m trying to do everything I can to perform earlier in the year, because we knew last year we didn’t collect as many bonus points for the Playoffs during the season as we needed. It’s on the radar for us.
“It’s not like we’re not trying, it’s just a tough go at it right now.”
Holly Cain writes for the NASCAR Wire Service.