Kyle Busch’s arrival in 2008 was a wake-up call for Denny Hamlin.
Hamlin was in the process of establishing his own career when Busch signed on with Joe Gibbs Racing that season after a contentious split from Hendrick Motorsports.
After two victories for JGR in his 2006 rookie season, Hamlin won one race in 2007. The following year, Busch arrived with something to prove.
Starting with a victory in the fourth race of the season at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta), Busch won eight of his first 22 races in a Gibbs car and opened Hamlin’s eyes to what was possible.
“When I signed my deal with Joe Gibbs Racing as development driver, it was kind of, I think it was the first year he (Busch) was going to run full-time with Hendrick in the O’Reilly Series,” Hamlin said Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I just remember that it was kind of him and Martin (Truex) and just those two guys going back and forth.
“He was really, really good, but I didn’t really know until he got in the same equipment that I got in (that) I could see how fast he was and just generally how good he was. At that point, it was like ‘This is going to be super challenging to be the fastest and the best at your organization. You are going to have a really tough time, as long as this guy’s your teammate.’”
Busch, who died Thursday at age 41, was hands-on in terms of setups, having built and worked on the cars he drove as an aspiring competitor in his native Las Vegas. Hamlin left the setup work to his crew chief and mechanics.
But the drivers learned from each other.
“I was just a feedback kind of person,” Hamlin said. “That was it. You were just going to get the driving side of that from me. So it certainly challenged me to evolve, and when I came into NASCAR itself, it was like, I come from short tracks. I didn’t come from mile-and-a-halves and stuff like this (Charlotte).
“It just was such an important part of my development process to have a teammate like him that was good at stuff like this, that I could learn from. So there’s no question, there were many, many instances where me and Kyle got to switch cars at a test, and at that point when I sat in the cars, I was like, “OK, so this is what a winning car feels like. This is just not the direction that I would think.’”
The roles were reversed on short tracks.
“And then vice versa, we go to short tracks, he’d get in and be like, ‘Man, it’s a lot different than what I would shoot for,’ and that combo is what made us more rounded than we ever were as race car drivers, just having that opportunity. I’m just super grateful for the opportunity to work with him as long as I did.”
