Talladega Superspeedway lived up to its billing as the most predictably unpredictable track in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, decimating the Chase field with a series of wrecks during Sunday’s AMP Energy 500.  The day for Denny Hamlin and the FedEx Racing team, however, was not undone by a multi-car wreck, but rather an engine failure on lap 137 that forced the #11 FedEx Camry from the race and into the garage, relegating him to a 38th-place finish. For Hamlin and team, it marked the second such failure in three weeks and spoiled what appeared to shaping up as a great chance to win a race and keep the momentum of last week’s Martinsville Speedway win going.


Separate late-race incidents led to both Ryan Newman and Mark Martin flipping their machines and that opened the door for Jamie McMurrary to claim the win under caution.  Kasey Kahne and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano filled out the top-three spots while Jimmie Johnson, the points leader, once again avoided Chase  problems to score an eighth place finish and take a 184-point lead into the final three races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.


Hamlin drove the #11 FedEx Express Toyota to the front on five occasions and led a total of eleven laps, all while testing the capabilities of his car as he prepared for what was shaping up to be a wild finish.  He managed to steer clear of trouble on the 2.66 mile high-banked track and the FedEx Express Toyota seemed to move easily within the pack throughout the afternoon –  both when the competitors ran three and four wide and when the pack ran single file nose-to- tale during the race.


Then, without warning on lap 137, the engine on the #11 let go and immediately ended the day of one of the field’s best cars.


“We take one step forward then two back, it seems like,” said Hamlin after the race.  “But we had a great car, that's for sure.  Our FedEx Camry was as strong as anyone, if not stronger, but just couldn't keep it together.  It's a different issue than what we had at Charlotte.  This one looks to be the bottom end, where it was the top end at Charlotte.  No telling what really let go.  It looked like a connector rod, because we got a lot of oil all over the place.”


“Hopefully it will make our engine department stronger and our team stronger and when we setup ourselves for a championship next year, we won't have mechanical issues and then we'll be able to fight them at the end.  The whole FedEx Express crew did a great job today getting me in and out of the pits on green flag stops.  It just wasn’t our day at the end.”


The result sees Hamlin drop two spots to 11th place in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings.  The ten-race shootout continues next week when the restrictor plates come off and the teams get back to racing as usual at Texas Motor Speedway.


Hamlin started ninth on the grid after qualifying was rained out on Friday and the field was set by NASCAR Sprint Cup points.  He easily moved up through the field in the early stages of the race and adapted to the pace early on.  He was running as high as sixth on lap 20, only to be shuffled back to 28th by lap 25.  Hamlin had a strong car and few concerns allowing the team to make only very minor changes – taking just tires, fuel and adding tape to the nose of the Toyota on the first two stops of the afternoon.


After Kurt Busch spun through the front stretch grass on lap 50 bringing out the second yellow of the afternoon, Crew Chief Mile Ford called Hamlin into the pits just to top off on fuel.


On the restart Hamlin went off from the eighth position and when the cars crossed the start-finish line just two laps later, Hamlin had moved from eighth place to the lead.  And then, as the back and forth racing continued, Hamlin would fall to tenth only one lap later. From that point, and for the next 30 laps, the leaders would run in single file order to avoid problems with Hamlin running easily and leading lap 62 before eventually setting into a rhythm and running in the top 10 positions.


With the top 20 cars running on two different pit strategies –Hamlin and the #11 FedEx Express team pitted under green on lap 96 and then again only four laps later. The strategy worked perfectly as Hamlin exited pit road and once again took the lead.


On lap 105 the yellow flag flew for debris and Hamlin stopped for just fuel.  At this point, with the pit sequence he was on, Hamlin would only need to make one more pit stop if the race remained green until the end.  The #11 Toyota was out front when the field took the green to restart on lap 109 then comfortably tucked into a consistent position in the top-ten as the laps began to count down.  Unfortunately, before Hamlin and the FedEx Express team could count off too many more laps the engine expired and Hamlin had to coast back to the garage area - ending his strong run and day far too early.