Hamlin returns to chase the victory that got away

His race was finished, but Denny Hamlin didn't want to get out of the car. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver sat inside his No. 11 Toyota gathering his thoughts, trying to come to grips with the fact that another Sprint Cup event on his home track -- one he had dominated until only 19 laps remained -- had gotten away from him.

A year has passed since that gut-churning moment at Richmond International Raceway, one where native son Hamlin seemed to be cruising to a long-awaited first victory at the .75-mile facility until air began leaking out of a cut right-front tire (watch video). He stayed out on the track as if he couldn't bear to come off, until the tire finally blew out in Turn 3. Within a span of moments, he had gone from leading 381 laps to a 24th-place finish. A two-lap penalty from NASCAR for bringing out an intentional caution only added to the misery.

He was so close to a perfect weekend, with a pole and a victory in the Nationwide race the previous evening preceding his truncated run in the Cup race. Heading back to Richmond for Saturday night's event, it's impossible for Hamlin to put the experience completely out of his head.

"It definitely replays in your mind, for sure," he said. "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."

For Hamlin, a native of the Richmond suburb of Midlothian and a product of the late-model tracks around central and southern Virginia, a Cup victory in his hometown seems overdue. His average finish of 8.83 on the short track is second among active drivers to Kyle Busch's 6.75. He finished second to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his rookie season, and has placed third twice, including this past fall. But the statistics don't indicate how much it would mean to Hamlin to win there.

"I think him winning at Richmond would be like winning the Daytona 500 to him. It would mean what the Brickyard meant to Tony Stewart," said Jim Dean, a late-model team owner based in Fairfax, Va., who once fielded cars for Hamlin in NASCAR's weekly series. "That's where he grew up. I think it's real important to him. He's come close so many times. He ran second there to Dale Jr. his rookie year, he obviously dominated a year ago and came up short with bad luck." (Continued)