Denny Hamlin hasn’t won a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race in a year and looks to end that drought in Sunday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Hamlin is the defending winner of the Labor Day weekend classic at the historic South Carolina oval. But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has been shut out of Victory Lane since and goes into the weekend determined to put an end to that streak and keep another one alive. Hamlin has won a race every season during his Cup career, since 2006.
“There are only a handful of drivers that have won over 10 years straight,” he said. “I still believe we’ll win a race before the season is over, if not multiple races. It’s got to start this weekend.
“The countdown is on. In 2013, we waited until the last race of the year to win – an asterisk, there, because I was hurt most of that year. But still, it’s a streak that is important to me.”
Hamlin has always run well at Darlington and over the last 10 starts there, he has an average finish of 5.8 including two wins. For whatever reason, he performs well at Darlington.
“I was at a test there with Tony (Stewart) and on the first lap, I killed the wall in Turn 2 and I think we ended up hitting the wall 19 or 20 times during that test – enough to where we didn’t have any sheet metal left on the right side of the car,” Hamlin remembered about his first Darlington experience.
“It had worn completely through. Since that point, it just kind of clicked. I came here for my very first Xfinity start and finished eighth and just from that point on – I don’t know. It’s just something about the race track that fits my particular driving style.”
There are two races left in the regular season and despite not winning through the first 24 of the year, Hamlin is securely in the playoff field. He has exactly on goal from here on out.
“To win,” Hamlin said. “That’s the only thing that we come here for. We haven’t been points racing for a long time now simply because we know based off just our average performance and what an average year it’s been, we’re going to be fine on points. We care about winning and that’s the only thing that I care about. Running better is very very important to us at this point, so we’re doing everything we can to work hard and get to that level that we want to be at.
“Winning one of these next two would for sure help with the momentum going into the playoffs, but momentum is only as good as that weekend. Just cause you win this week, on Monday it does nothing for you for next week. Sometimes momentum is overstated. It’s just about how you’re performing on any given week.”
Motor Racing Network – “The Voice of NASCAR” will have live coverage of Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 from Darlington Raceway, beginning at 5 p.m. (ET) – with live streaming at MRN.com.
