At a track where he has enjoyed more success than any active NASCAR driver, the potential to make more history awaits Denny Hamlin at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran will make his 400th consecutive start in the Cup Series and the 36th of his career at the 0.533-mile oval in East Tennessee. Hamlin has a circuit-leading four victories at the short track nestled in an area known as “Thunder Valley” near the border with Virginia, the state where Hamlin grew up.
With its high-banked concrete surface ringed by 146,000 seats, Bristol bills itself as “The Last Great Colosseum,” and Hamlin has been on a gladiatorial roll with consecutive victories at Virginia’s Martinsville Speedway and South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway the past two weeks. With his next win, he would become the winningest driver in Joe Gibbs Racing history (breaking a tie with two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch at 56 wins) and joining current teammate Christopher Bell by notching the second three-race winning streak this season.
“I try not to psych myself out too much about it because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those type of situations, and you end up making silly mistakes,” Hamlin said. “I just try to be as even-keeled as I can. It is a new week. It is another great opportunity to win another race. If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and a very proud moment in my career, but it is not something that we set out to do each and every week.”
Hamlin also is tempering expectations because often “the stars have to align perfectly,” as they did at Darlington. He seized the win by leading only 10 of 297 laps, including the last six after a swift pit stop catapulted his No. 11 Toyota into the lead and past Rusty Wallace into 11th on the Cup Series career wins list.