Denny Hamlin’s three Homestead wins is most in this weekend’s field and a fourth trophy on Sunday would essentially salvage a challenging Playoff run for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. The driver of the No. 11 JGR Toyota sits in fifth place – 27 points below the four-driver cutoff line that will decide who competes for the championship Nov. 10 at Phoenix.
Hamlin has four top-10 finishes in the seven Playoff races with a best showing of fourth at Bristol, Tenn. last month. Most telling, perhaps, he has led only two of the races for a combined five laps.
“It doesn’t matter how far back you are in points, you’ve just got to find a way to win,” Hamlin said, adding, “Anything can happen and certainly you’re never out of it until they throw the checkered. But [crew chief] Chris [Gabehart] does a really good job of pumping the team up, keeping them motivated and getting the best out of them. We all go through these swells where we’re not performing our best and certainly the timing is not ideal right now.
“But every week is new week with them and me so certainly I feel optimistic going into this one. We’ve done the work in the week to get better and we’re all going to hopefully perform our best.
“I think in this sport, momentum is very over-rated,” he added. “It’s week-to-week. We have to perform like we’re capable of and we just haven’t shown that in quite some time.”
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