NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Ford 200

Topics:  Ford 200

Denny Hamlin
November 18, 2011

HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Our race runner up is Denny Hamlin, and he drove the No. 18 Dollar General DirecTV Toyota. Denny, certainly you were talking today about having to run three this weekend, the first time in your career. You come out with a second place finish in the Camping World Truck Series event. That's a pretty good effort.
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, it was good. We didn't practice that well with the Dollar General Toyota, and we just -- you know, we weren't all that great during the course of the race, but we did get better as we went, and obviously the last run I was just trying to be patient.
I knew I had a truck that could get around Johnny, but I just wanted to be patient and wait until later stages of the race, and also to ensure that we kept the third place guy behind us and tried to use the draft.
You know, strategy didn't work out. It probably cost us a win today, but they told me one lap before the rain came that it looks like rain is coming, so if I got anything, I'd better go. That was my last-ditch effort on the corner to try to get around him. He slid up and got into us and we got in the wall, and it was one of those things, it was -- we were not in a position to really race him that hard anyway.

Q. Denny, from your seat, how slippery was the racetrack there in 3 and 4 when you tried to make the move on Johnny?
DENNY HAMLIN: I didn't think it was too bad, it seemed, relative to what we had before. But he slipped up quite a bit, so he was the first one to evidently get to any moisture that was there. I had already committed to run really wide open on the outside; whatever happens, happens. For us, I didn't think it was that much different. You know, he would probably be a better guess for that.
But it was coming down. You could definitely see as soon as we let off the caution it was pouring pretty bad.

Q. How difficult was the track at the start of the race being a green racetrack the way it was, and what does that portend maybe if we've got more rain between now and Sunday afternoon?
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, it wasn't too bad. It was relatively similar to what we had in practice because we kept practicing on green surfaces; not much changed. Every time we'd run our practice session, rain would come, so every new practice session was on a green racetrack. So I think the Cup cars kind of having a clean slate tomorrow should be relatively fine. I thought the track was very consistent from day to night.

Q. These last two Truck races you've had a pretty good time. Would you consider doing any additional or any more of these next year?
DENNY HAMLIN: You know, maybe a few. It definitely wouldn't be on a triple weekend or anything like that. But I always try to do just one a year. But yeah, I mean, driving these trucks that KBM has has just been really good. Those guys put together some awesome race trucks, and I sit in it and I look around and it's as good as what my Cup car looks like on the inside. They put together some really nice trucks, and obviously they've given me, the two times I've been in it, two chances to win. Yeah, maybe three or four or something like that, but as long as the schedule all works out. Ain't going to be on a weekend like this.