Sports

Motorsports

Elevated emotions

By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
Published September 29, 2007

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Denny Hamlin was orbiting Dover International Speedway under caution, fingers flexing on his steering wheel as he engaged- or was it indulged - crew chief Mike Ford in conversation.

A week after opening the Chase for the Championship with a 15th-place finish at Loudon, N.H., where he had won this summer, Hamlin had the car and the desire for the lead. He had led 61 of the first 77 laps, but Ford advocated patience on Lap 84, advising his 26-year-old driver not to abuse his equipment with bullish tactics so early in the race, so early in the Chase for that matter. Less than a hundred laps later, attempting to cut through lapped traffic, Hamlin rammed into of veteran backmarker Kyle Petty, causing damage that relegated Hamlin to an eventual 38th-place finish (worst among the championship contenders) and a plummet to 12th in the standings.

Mentality and emotion have become major factors in winning a championship because drivers must negotiate 43 simultaneous agendas on the track. Just 12 are competing for a title, but 31 other teams are in position to affect the outcome. Drivers can either take that as an annoyance or a variable. Hamlin, at that moment in Dover, apparently saw Petty as an annoyance to be discarded, though he claimed he was not being overly aggressive.

"There was no reason for me to be aggressive at all," said Hamlin, who finished third in the series as a rookie last year. "I had (Clint Bowyer) a car length or two behind, but I can give up a spot. I have no problem in that. It's a mistake whether it's on my part or his part."

Hamlin failed where others, veterans and young drivers alike, excelled Sunday.

Bowyer, involved in the accident as he ran alongside Petty, continued to recover from a 42nd-place start with some timely pit stops and sticky tape, and finished 12th.

Jimmie Johnson had to pit under green for a flat tire but rallied to 14th. Aside from a series of attention-getting bumps on Paul Menard after being blocked in his pit box, Tony Stewart helped crew chief Greg Zipadelli tweak a baffling No. 20 Chevrolet enough to bring him from a lap down on Lap 189 to finish ninth.

"I was on suicide watch for the first 200 laps, but we finally hit on something that the car liked," said Stewart, second in points, two behind leader Jeff Gordon.

Gordon used creative pit strategy to steal 11th place with what was an admittedly, an unusually noncompetitive car. Jeff Burton was a lap down and bounced back to finish seventh. In summation, those who kept their temperament - a few animated radio conversations aside- under control persevered and banked valuable points.

Johnson has honed his ability to focus through the possibility of a season going sour, especially during the Chase. Using racing as a diversion in the aftermath of a Hendrick Motorsports team plane crash that killed 10 people in 2004, he won four of the last six races and finished eight points behind eventual champion Kurt Busch. Last season, in what he called his most despondent moment in a race car, he was wrecked with Dale Earnhardt Jr. by then-teammate Brian Vickers while running second on the next-to-last turn of the Chase race at Talladega. The 24th-place finish dropped him to 156 points out of first place with six races left. But after finishing an average of 22.5 in the first four Chase races, he produced a win and four runner-up placements in the last five, then points-raced at Homestead to win his first championship. Hamlin is just 158 points out and has time to recover, but finding and maintaining perspective is no easy task, Johnson said.

"It's one of the most challenging things I've ever done," he said. "And I think with my experience last year in the Chase and then winning the Chase, it's helped me a lot for this year's mental approach and mindset. I think that really gives an advantage to past champions. I'm not saying a new champion or a guy like Denny Hamlin or Clint Bowyer, who are young to the sport, can't do it, but it's a tough, tough deal to fight through week after week."

[Last modified September 28, 2007, 20:26:20]

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