Q. Denny, congratulations. This is your 13th career win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, fifth win in 2010. That’s a single-season career high for you. Your previous high was last year with four. Your first victory at Michigan. All-important bonus points continue to rack up for the 11 team. Your thoughts about today’s victory?
DENNY HAMLIN: It’s a great accomplishment to win on so many different racetracks for us. To be able to unload and know you’re going to be competitive for a race win week in and week out gives you a lot of confidence. For the first time really in my career, I feel like we’re at this place.
Q. Denny, do you ever remember spanking a field the way you did today? Is this as thorough a whipping you’ve put on people in a long time?
DENNY HAMLIN: In late models I did, but competition level is a little different. Pocono, I’ve had days at Pocono like this. But, no, we never stopped working. Regardless of whether we have a 9/10ths of a second lead or nine-second lead, we’re constantly trying to make our car better. I think we’ve got some ideas to improve our car the next time we come back.
We’re not going to get complacent, I don’t think. Even though it looks strong, it’s not as easy as it looked today. Friday and Saturday were somewhat of a struggle for us. We got lucky qualifying seventh simply pause we went out early. We probably would have qualified 15th to 20th if we went out any later. So we just capitalized and did everything we were supposed to do to win.
Q. Denny, did you see any debris on the track? At that point did you just go, Well, I knew this was inevitable, have to fight it off? What did you see there?
DENNY HAMLIN: Well, I mean, it’s tough because I was literally thinking inside the car, I’m all for some of these cautions. You know, if I don’t win the race because maybe I get a bad restart or something, then probably I’m angry because I feel like NASCAR changed the outcome of the race.
But, you know, we did everything. It was still on me to do my job to win the race. I feel like I got a good restart, got clear of those guys. You know, I understand this is show business.
No, I didn’t see any debris, if that’s what you’re asking. I mean, we typically get them every single week. I’m not going to say it’s accepted, but what can you do?
Q. Denny, did you know yesterday you had a car this good? Barring something significant happening, this was your race to lose or did you realize that in today’s race?
DENNY HAMLIN: I thought we ended yesterday pretty good. We had a couple decent runs. You look at the sheet, though, and we weren’t great. But, you know, I think that’s one thing that we do a really good job at. It seems like wherever my feel is where I want it, regardless of the speed it shows on Saturday, it really shows up on Sunday. That’s a really good feeling. Mike tells me we changed some pivotal things in the car that I didn’t necessarily think was the best thing, but it turns out it was very, very good.
You know, all I can say is we’ll just keep digging. When things go your way like they have for us over the last 10 races, you know, the confidence level is just huge, whether it be in the middle of the race, at the beginning. When you have a car as fast as what mine was today, it’s so easy to be patient. When you have a car that is not, you can’t be patient. That’s probably why I got myself in trouble over the last couple years with a few wrecks.
Q. After the basketball injury, you spoke very confidently about coming back, how strong you thought you could be. In the middle of June, talking about five victories, is that still a little bit hard to take?
DENNY HAMLIN: It is at this point. I mean, believe me, I didn’t think that we were going to have the success right away that we’re having, especially after the knee thing. You know, after Texas, I had full faith that we could do it. But, you know, the pain level at Phoenix was so much that I was wondering, Is it going to get better each week? I hoped so, because that was pretty much unbearable.
It seemed like after Texas, we got that win the following week, it’s just been a snowball effect. The healthier I’ve got, the more I’m concentrating on this racecar and it seems like the better performances it’s getting.
Q. Clearly you’re going to be a part of this championship run. You want to win it for yourself and your team. How much of a driving force is it for you for you to be the guy who wins the landmark first championship for Toyota?
DENNY HAMLIN: It’s tough to say. Until it actually happens, it’s tough to say how you’ll feel. I got asked that question a ton of times when we were trying to win at Richmond, what would it be like to win at Richmond. It’s tough to say.
Until it actually happens, you can’t really put it into words. But Toyota has been just an outstanding supporter of us. Everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, through thick and thin, no matter what goes on in their company, their support for our race team has never wavered. I’m just so proud to represent them.
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Denny Hamlin Takes Series-Leading Fifth Victory of The Season at Michigan
NASCAR Sprint Cup Race at Michigan International Speedway - Race Results
Q. When you had your injury, you were sidelined, did that give you time to think and reflect how you might want to go about your career from there on out? You have so many irons in the fire. You’re a young guy. It just seems the resolve you’ve come back with since then, the dedication is pretty intense.
DENNY HAMLIN: Well, I think obviously sitting on the couch for weeks on end makes you think. I constantly am thinking. We were watching a movie last night. My mind is racing of what we can do to make the car better.
I don’t know. It’s in my blood. I haven’t had this much focus I feel like on what we need to do to make our cars better over and over and over since my late model days when we were absolutely dominating.
It’s just funny for me. It’s like the more success we get, the hungrier it makes me to try to win again.
Q. Denny, is this turning into a dream season for you? Are you pinching yourself right now?
DENNY HAMLIN: It’s been good so far. I mean, we had a rocky first few races or so, five races or so before we finished in the teens. We weren’t setting the world on fire, but we had some issues as well. Seems once we got to Martinsville and turned that corner, it’s been really good for us.
Statistically, this has been a pretty good run of tracks for us, the last 10. It has been over the course of my career. You know, where we need to improve is those Chase racetracks. We felt like we made strides at Dover. You know, we kind of used that as a test session. To go from a two-lap-down non-competitive race to finishing in the top five getting ready for the Chase race there, we’re making strides at all of our worst racetracks.
For me, you know, it seems like I used to go into every season thinking, We ought to get a couple wins, Martinsville, Pocono. Now it’s just show up and, hey, we can win. That to me is just a feeling I don’t think we’ve ever had before. I haven’t had it before.
Q. When you did have the fuel issue on pit road, what went through your mind? Were you at all concerned that might be a problem for you guys?
DENNY HAMLIN: Well, we had a similar issue at the start of the Pocono race last year where we broke a fuel cable. I thought that’s what we did. When I went to take off, it immediately shut off. So I thought maybe we spun a cable like we did last year.
That was a downer, for sure. But once it picked back up, I was pretty confident we weren’t going to have it again. ‘Cause Mike never really gave me an alarm we were going to be stretching it on fuel. That particular run, we had been out front for the first time, used more throttle than we used all day. The driver wasn’t as good with fuel mileage. I didn’t think we were going to be low on fuel. He assured me that it’s just a one-time thing.
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