Updated March 30
Denny Hamlin entered Sunday's race at Martinsville as the defending event champion. In fact, last year's race was the last time he visited Victory Lane.
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| Despite a lack of wins, Denny Hamlin is still posting solid finishes. (US Presswire) |
Sunday proved to be another close-but-no-cigar day for Hamlin, running his winless streak to 36 races.
Hamlin led a race-high 296 laps, but Jimmie Johnson was able to nudge his way past with 41 laps to go, and Hamlin was never able to muster another challenge.
"We came up short," Hamlin said. "That was short-track racing. I would've done the same thing to him, and if it comes back around, I will do the same. It's just the way it is. In Martinsville, you have to battle for every inch, and I was trying to protect a spot, and he was trying to get it at the end of the race. That's the way it goes."
In the 36 races since his last victory, Hamlin does have 13 top fives with nine finishes of second or third. While disappointed in not being able to snag the victory the past couple of weekends, there is a silver lining to the strong runs.
"We're not going to win the championship this weekend," Hamlin said. "We're going to have to win the championship later on in the season. We know we have a great package now. This is a Chase race, so I'm happy about that. We have to make sure we're in position first. We have to make sure we're in the top 12 and our whole FedEx team is doing all it can to provide me good cars.
"To come to our first two short tracks and to be in contention to win both races -- it's uplifting. Yeah, it sucks that you didn't win, but things don't always fall our way, and today, they didn't. I was in a vulnerable spot. I let him get too close, and when he did get close, he took the first opportunity he could to get to us, and I would've done the same exact thing."
Power Rankings after Martinsville:
| POWER RANKINGS | ||
| Current | Driver | Previous |
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 1 |
| Is there any reason to pick against him other than the belief that the law of averages eventually has to catch up to him? | ||
| 2 | Jeff Gordon | 3 |
| He's got to be fed up watching his teammate rack up the wins and titles. | ||
| 3 | Kurt Busch | 5 |
| Penske is the only Dodge camp in town. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It will be interesting to see how Busch adjusts to new crew chief Steve Addington, who helped lead his brother Kyle to 12 wins the past two seasons. | ||
| 4 | Tony Stewart | 6 |
| Throughout his career he has been the model of consistency with his first season as driver-owner right on par with his career averages. However, he'll need to step up his game during the Chase if he's to snatch the title away from Johnson. Consistency alone won't get the job done like it did in 2005. | ||
| 5 | Clint Bowyer | 9 |
| Of Richard Childress Racing's trio of drivers, he's the one who flies under the radar. But I have a hunch that this could be his breakout season. | ||
| 6 | Kyle Busch | 8 |
| He was dominant at times over the past couple of years, but when his car was off, he tended to pout and his finishes suffered because of it. It's up to Dave Rogers to keep him focused during the bad days. | ||
| 7 | Denny Hamlin | 4 |
| Because of his strong finish to end 2009, many consider him the top challenger to Johnson. But his knee injury concerns me and I think it will affect his performance as the season drags on. | ||
| 8 | Carl Edwards | 15 |
| I don't know that I expect him to climb all the way back to 2008 levels when he had nine wins, but he should be much improved from 2009 when he had none. | ||
| 9 | Mark Martin | 2 |
| He had a magical season in his return to full-time racing with Hendrick Motorsports, but I don't believe he'll hit that same level in 2010. | ||
| 10 | Jeff Burton | 11 |
| He was among the hottest drivers the last few weeks of the 2009 season, but we have seen so often that momentum doesn't always carry over. | ||
| 11 | Greg Biffle | 10 |
| He's a lot like Bowyer in that I don't think he gets the amount of respect he probably deserves. He has championship ability; I'm just not sure his crew is up to the challenge. | ||
| 12 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 7 |
| To be honest, I have no idea what to expect of Montoya entering this season. I think he can be in the mix again, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he takes a step back. | ||
| 13 | Matt Kenseth | 12 |
| He's never been the same since he lost Robbie Reiser as crew chief, and I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he's going to rediscover that magic without him. | ||
| 14 | Kasey Kahne | 14 |
| Like Harvick, he's a pending free agent with many believing he has got one foot out the door. But he has seemed awfully excited about the Roush-Yates power he has under the hood with Richard Petty Motorsports' switch to Fords. | ||
| 15 | Brian Vickers | NR |
| Can the team rediscover the consistency that helped vault him and his Red Bull team into the Chase for the first time or were his dreadful runs during the Chase a sign of things to come? | ||
