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 |
| Though 2007 will remain his most dominant season for wins (10) and top fives (20), 2009 is his best for laps led. After a dominating run at Phoenix he has led 2,210 laps this season. His previous best came last season when he led 1,959 laps. | ||
| 2 | Mark Martin | 2 |
| Though he'll need Johnson to have a mishap like he had at Texas, he still has hope of claiming that elusive championship. More than likely though, Talladega looks like it'll be the killer just as many suspected. | ||
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | 3 |
| It's been a tough month for Gordon and his 24 team. After running off four consecutive top fives in October, Sunday's ninth-place finish was his best in three November races. | ||
| 4 | Denny Hamlin | 6 |
| When he's not wrecking or losing an engine, he has been pretty good, claiming top-five finishes in five of the nine Chase races. | ||
| 5 | Kurt Busch | 7 |
| Looked like he was going to have a chance to pull off back-to-back wins, but his car faded in the second half of the race and he had to settle for sixth. | ||
| 6 | Tony Stewart | 5 |
| Started eighth at Phoenix, but faded quickly and was never a factor. With a 25th-place finish Sunday, he has finished outside the top 10 in four of the nine Chase races. | ||
| 7 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 6 |
| Wasn't quite able to snag another top five, but did manage to walk away with a top 10 after a couple of rough outings at Talladega and Texas. | ||
| 8 | Kyle Busch | 8 |
| "We're not satisfied with finishing 12th, but on the other hand we're excited to start finishing 12th," said Dave Rogers after his second race as Busch's crew chief. "Joe Gibbs Racing made this [crew chief] change with three [races] to go so I can learn Kyle [Busch] and I can learn the guys to get that communication established. We had some valuable lessons today. We learned a lot, some we learned by failures. Our last stop there, me and the guys didn't communicate clear enough and went the wrong way on our adjustments and we tried to balance the car out. I'm disappointed but we know the big picture is 2010. All those little lessons we can learn right now and getting them out of our way will make us that much stronger next year." | ||
| 9 | Clint Bowyer | 11 |
| He has back-to-back seventh-place runs and has finished in the top 10 in four of the past six races. | ||
| 10 | Ryan Newman | 9 |
| A tough day at Phoenix made worse by damage he received in the big, multi-car pileup. He has finished outside the top 10 in six of the past seven races. | ||
| 11 | Greg Biffle | 12 |
| A so-so afternoon at Phoenix for Biffle, who started sixth but faded into the teens where he ran most of the day. | ||
| 12 | Matt Kenseth | 10 |
| Just when it appeared Kenseth and his 17 team were getting their act together, they put in a dud at Phoenix. | ||
| 13 | Kasey Kahne | 13 |
| Despite starting top five in each of the past two races, he wasn't able to parlay that into top 10 runs. | ||
| 14 | Jeff Burton | NR |
| Though results have improved with Berrier as his crew chief, qualifying has not. Burton has started 30th or worse 13 times this season, including 36th on Sunday and 42nd last week at Texas where he finished ninth. | ||
| 15 | Carl Edwards | 14 |
| The 99 team isn't exactly ending the season on a high note. Edwards has just two top 10s in the past 12 races. | ||
