One year ago it looked as Denny Hamlin was going to have the weekend of a lifetime in front of his hometown crowd. The Chesterfield, Virginia-native captured the pole for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race, scored the victory in the Nationwide Series event Friday night and dominated the Cup race Saturday evening. Leading an astonishing 381 laps, Hamlin’s dreams of winning at Richmond had the wind taken out of it sails – more like his tire.

After leading all but one lap, Hamlin radioed his crew reporting a problem. “I think I got a flat,” was not the news crew chief Mike Ford wanted to hear and as the laps went on, the problem got worse. By Lap 392, the tire finally let go. Hamlin, unable to get to pit road, stopped his No. 11 FedEx Toyota at the exit of Turn 4 to bring out the caution. With his dominant performance now negated, NASCAR added insult to injury by penalizing the Joe Gibbs Racing driver one lap for intentionally bringing out the yellow.

Despite finishing third in the September race at Richmond, the disappointment from that night in May still makes Hamlin think ‘What if?’

“It definitely replays in your mind for sure,” Hamlin admitted. “There’s obviously nothing we could’ve done.  It wasn’t like I second guessed something that I did and I could’ve changed something to prevent us from not winning that race.  It’s just one of those things that bad luck strikes.  The good part is knowing that we’re going back to the same track hopefully with the same weather conditions and we’ll have a car that is just as strong.  We’re going to go back on the same setup and if it isn’t as strong we’re going to fine tune it.  Race tracks and races like that just slip away.  It takes a little time to get over them for sure.”

While the weekend ended on a sour note, Hamlin still believes that weekend last May was the highlight of his career. Winning the pole for the Cup race and taking home the checkers in the Nationwide race in front of his hometown crowd were definitely special.

“In my opinion, the Nationwide race that I won there the night before that was the biggest win pretty much of my career regardless of whether it was Cup or Nationwide,” Hamlin explained. “Just winning at home, it didn’t matter what series, was the biggest win.”

One of the strongest cars last weekend in Talladega, Hamlin was taken out of contention when Juan Pablo Montoya came across the nose of the No. 11, triggering a multi-car crash just eight laps from the finish. After leading twenty-eight laps, Hamlin was forced to settle with a 22nd-place finish.

Back in front of his hometown crowd this weekend, Hamlin appears confident he can score his first victory of the 2009 season. Piloting chassis JGR 238 this weekend, Hamlin will have the car he led a race-high 296 laps and finished second with at Martinsville earlier this year. Look for the No. 11 Toyota Camry to be a dominant factor atop the speed charts all weekend long and a serious contender once the green flag flies.

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