Unlike previous years, the start of speedweeks marks the #11 FedEx Racing team’s first visit to Daytona.  Past seasons have included long January days of testing at the famous track in prep for the “Great American Race” but testing restrictions have kept the speedway free of Cup cars until the gates opened to mark the start of the 2009 season late last week.  With the Bud Shootout (13th place finish) and the first stage of Daytona 500 qualifying (25th) behind them, the #11 FedEx Racing team now sets their sights on the Duel qualifying races, some final tweaks to the car and the main event on Sunday.

Through three 500 starts and a total of six Cup starts at Daytona – Denny Hamlin and the #11 team have never finished as well as they’ve raced.  With as close as the racing is at Daytona, finishing is job one, and that’s the only area where the team has come up short.  They’ve qualified well, led laps and Hamlin has steadily improved his command of the superspeedway – now comes time to put it all together.  Hamlin posted a best-ever finish in the 500 last season, when he led 32 laps and had one of the more dominant cars in the field.  Unfortunately, contact suffered on pit road during a lap 120 pit stop required repair and adversely affected the handle on the #11 FedEx Camry.  Despite making his way back into the pack for the finish, his position in the draft left him vulnerable to the string of incidents before the end and he settled for a 17th place finish.  In 2007, Hamlin ran as high as second place and was well positioned to challenge until he suffered fender damage, was forced to pit on consecutive laps and gave up valuable track position. Stuck deep in the pack and inching his way forward for a shot at the leaders, he was then collected in a last lap wreck and finished 28th.  After qualifying seventeenth for the 2006 Daytona 500, Hamlin ran mid-pack most of the afternoon before being caught up in a lap 197 wreck that caused extensive right-side damage and relegated him to a 30th-place finish.



Daytona 500 Chassis - JGR 233 & 200:


The FedEx team will unload Chassis JGR 233 for the Gatorade Duels and Daytona 500.  This is a brand new car from Joe Gibbs Racing.  Chassis #200 is the backup for the 500 and also has only one start – a 26th place finish at Daytona in the summer of 2008. 

Hamlin Conversation – DAYTONA 500:

With the Bud Shootout behind you, how are you feeling ahead of the Duels and 500?:

“Well the Bud Shootout gave us a pretty good idea of where we are from a handling perspective and I am really happy about our cars.  I was really able to go where I needed, suck up when I wanted to, come from the back when I had to so we are right where we want to be.  I think I had a real shot of the winning the shootout, I know we had the car for it but in the end we were caught up in someone else’s wreck and it was out of our hands.  With this kind of racing, it’s all you can do to put yourself in the right spot and I really think we have the car to do it.  I would like to repeat what we did last year, win our duel and bring the car home in one piece so we know exactly what we have for the 500 on Sunday.”

How important are tires going to be on Thursday and Sunday?

“Very important.  We had one stop on Saturday night where we went fuel only and I ended up out there on the longest run of the night on old tires and it made a huge difference.  With as good as we were handling through the first ten or 15 laps of a run, we’ll see if we can minimize the effect of the tire drop off – that would keep us really competitive should we get some longer green flag runs.  I am guessing that we’ll see some close racing all afternoon and then everyone will take tires for the end and it will be wild out there to the finish.”

 

A lot is being made of you being the senior member of the team and taking on a leadership role – how real is that responsibility for you?:

"I think it’s easy to assume that the oldest member of the team will be the leader, but in this case I know that it’s something that I want to be seen as. I have been working really hard this offseason, getting myself prepared for this season and I have been working with the #11 team to make sure they are getting the best out of me. This entire JGR organization is very good, and from the drivers to the crew to everyone back at the shop I know there is a feeling that making the Chase is great, but we really want to be challenging for a championship.  Obviously Kyle had a great season last year and Joey will be just starting off his Cup career so I think you’ll see Kyle and I working together and giving Joey any help he might need – but all of us have the same goal and that’s to be a factor in the championship.  If I can serve as a leader and help push the entire team forward, I promise I will.”

In terms of looking ahead at the 35 races after you leave Daytona, how important is it to get a good finish here?:

“It helps a lot if you can leave with a good finish and not be looking up the standings but it’s not critical.  You just have to take your shot at winning here and know there is so much that happens that is out of our control.  We want a great race here on Sunday and then we’ll start thinking about what we need to do at California.”