A force to be reckoned with
Phenom Hamlin's living up to potential
No one was going to stop him. How could they?
Denny Hamlin was an irresistible force of nature, even as a 7-year-old go-kart driver who won the first race he entered. When he crossed the finish line some 19 years ago at Capitol City Speedway in Ashland, Va., Hamlin kept right on going. The flagman stopped short of throwing himself across the track to stop Hamlin after the precocious winner was shown the checkered flag, then the red flag, and, finally, the black flag.
Blissfully oblivious to the frantic efforts to get him to stop, Hamlin just kept right on driving.
Lap after lap after lap.
Mary Lou Hamlin,
True story? "Yeah, it was," Hamlin admitted, sheepishly. "I mean, I really didn't know what the flags meant. I definitely knew what the green meant, but when they threw the red, I didn't necessarily know what it meant. When I got the checkered, I definitely knew I had won, but I didn't know I was supposed to stop. I think I went three laps, so I guess I gave it three victory laps instead of one.
"It was my very first race."
Thanks to the dedication of Hamlin's hard-working parents, it wasn't his last.
Even though it nearly drove them to financial ruin, Hamlin's parents vowed to do whatever it took - depleting their savings and retirement accounts, twice mortgaging their home, and nearly bankrupting their family trailer hitch business - to nurture the prodigious racing talent of their youngest of four children.
They recognized Denny was a burgeoning phenom who won races in just about everything he drove, from go-karts to Mini Stocks to Late Models, who captured championships in just about every division he competed, and who quickly became a local legend at just about every small dirt track he buzzed around near his Chesterfield, Va., home.
"We saw that it was more than just a hobby for him," said Hamlin's mother. "I mean, he was very focused on it, very dedicated. Our other kids were all grown up, so we wanted to do whatever we could in order to help him along."
Asked if it were true she and her husband, Dennis, spent almost $750,000 to fund their son's racing career, Mary Lou replied, "There's no telling. We never kept track of it. But we did put everything we had into it."
Now that their 26-year-old son is in his second year on the NASCAR Nextel Cup circuit, having earned $3,824,290 this season driving the No. 11
"You know," she said, shaking her head in disbelief, "it still doesn't seem real."
And, yes, Hamlin made his parents whole. "That means a lot to me, to be able to pay those debts back," he said. "We're now just starting to get over some of the debts that we created trying to get my career going, but I definitely don't want people to look at that as an example of things to do, because you really don't want to put yourself in a bad situation like we did.
"Luckily, it all paid off in the end or else we would've really been in trouble."
Hamlin's talent, though, steered his family clear of any financial wreckage.
His big break
In 2006, two years removed from driving Late Models for car owner and guardian angel Jim Dean of Manassas, Va., Hamlin won the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway, swept both races at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, finished third in his first Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship, and went on to win Rookie of the Year honors for Joe Gibbs Racing.
"He's a phenomenal talent," said Dean, who gave Hamlin his big break in 2003 and resuscitated his Late Model career at a time Hamlin's parents no longer could afford it.
"They called me to interview me last year about him having a sophomore slump and I said it wasn't going to happen. He's going to be a guy who's only going to get better. They'll see. A lot of people say it, but it's just the fact. He's only going to be better. He's going to be a handful in the next couple of years."
Said Hamlin, "I still know that my potential as a driver is not nearly at its peak. I think I'm probably 80 percent right now from where I'll be maybe four or five years down the road. If that's the case, and we're as competitive as we are now, then I'm pretty optimistic about the future."
Asked about Hamlin's unprecedented, if not unconventional, path to Nextel Cup stardom, Gibbs, the Hall of Fame coach of the Washington Redskins, told reporters in January: "To me, it made no sense. He's just real, real talented. That's what it is. He has a gift. I think that shows you in this sport that no matter how much you've driven, some guys are gifted. Some guys have an extra [quality] . . . It's like all sports - all of us want to play quarterback, but then some guys are Mannings."
When you talk to an NFL coach, there can be no higher compliment than that. But talk to Hamlin's teammate, Tony Stewart, crew chief Mike Ford, or any of his Nextel Cup competitors, and they will all confirm the same thing: Denny Hamlin is the real deal, the genuine article, a guy who hasn't won a championship yet but will win more than one before his career is over.
"Funny story," said Ford, who was responsible for making the critical call for a two-tire pit stop that propelled Hamlin to his only victory of the season (and third overall of his career) in July's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway.
"When we took him to Kansas for his first test in the Cup car in September 2005, all the way there he was saying to us, 'I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready for this.' " Ford said with a chuckle. "The 12, the 97, the 99 were some of the guys who were there testing at the same time and he went out there and chased all of them off the track with our time. We never told him what we were running. Yet, he's still sitting there [in the car], saying, 'Just be patient with me. We'll creep up on it a little at a time,' and here he was two-10ths faster than anyone at the track."
Rock-solid year
While he has had only the one victory to speak of this season, which helped him gain 10 valuable bonus points in the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship, stardom seems to be creeping up on Hamlin, who will return to NHIS for Sunday's Sylvania 300 as the No. 6 seed in the 12-man field of Chasers. Sophomore slump? What sophomore slump?
"I think he's been one of the few guys who hasn't had a sophomore slump," Stewart said. "Even though he hasn't had the wins he had last year - even though he's only got one this year - I think he's had a better year, in all reality. He's been solid. I mean, that kid, he's solid."
Hamlin was rock-solid even when his own teammate, Stewart, called him out following a wreck that tore up both their cars as they were running first and second, respectively, in the early going of July's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Although replays showed Stewart's car had gotten into Hamlin's, Stewart fumed to the media, "He's a young guy and he wants to be successful, but I don't know if he knows what the definition of 'team' is right now."
When reporters rushed up to him for a response, Hamlin remained poised and took the high road. "If he wants to blame it on me, I'll be the bigger man and take responsibility for it," he said at the time.
Although Stewart acknowledged that Hamlin "handled it well with the media," Hamlin subjected his teammate to the silent treatment, letting a week go by without speaking to Stewart about the incident. Gibbs nipped the potentially divisive situation in the bud when he showed up at Chicagoland Speedway and met with his drivers to clear the air.
"I would still do the same thing today if we had another incident," Hamlin said last month before the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "I'm going to take the high road because the controversy and all, it's not worth it. I think he learned in the long run, too, especially with a teammate, that it's not going to be good to blast me on TV or whatever because all it did was cause two total weeks of stress for us.
"It was a pain to have to deal with and at the end of our meeting, we were like, 'Now we can just tell everyone it's over and it's done,' " Hamlin added. "I think it was really getting to him as much as it was getting to me that we hadn't talked and, really, that's why I chose not to talk to him, because I wanted to get in his head a little bit that, 'Look, just because you're the elder here and the team leader doesn't mean I'm just going to roll over for you.' "
In standing his ground, though, Hamlin seemed to win newfound respect from Stewart.
"Everybody has to deal with it a different way," Stewart said. "I'm one of those guys I wouldn't have wanted to talk about it that night, either. The next day I was ready to talk about it. For him, it was a week, but everybody's got to do it different. The thing that came out of it is we're stronger together now than we were before that meeting and that's kind of the way this whole race team has been."
Dean's influence
Hamlin, though, forged a steely tough-mindedness on the track when he raced for Dean. They won 25 races in 34 starts together as Late Model rookies - Dean as an owner, Hamlin as a driver. When Hamlin won the first NASCAR Nextel Cup pole of his career at Phoenix in November 2005, Dean was one of the first people Hamlin thanked for the opportunity.
"He was definitely a big influence in me getting here, without a doubt," Hamlin said of Dean. "We were done with our racing career as a family until he stepped up. That meant a lot to me, for him to sacrifice a lot of things for my family, so I'm definitely forever in debt to him."
Three months later, when Hamlin won the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, Dean watched the race from home and wept when he saw Hamlin make the winning move and stave off Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the victory.
"I knew that it was just the start for him," Dean said. "Other people may not have believed me then when I said it, but I really, really knew it was just the start. I give you my word, I knew it was just the start and I give you my word now, this is just the start.
"He's going to win championships. You just watch."
There'll be no stopping him then.
Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com. 