Hamlin playfully loose on NASCAR championship eve

Denny Hamlin was the straw that stirs the drink in the final Final Four press conference prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.

First, Hamlin was much looser than he was on Friday following a mechanical scare, aided by the fact that he scored pole position on Saturday afternoon. During the NextGen era, the finalist that qualified the best of the four ultimately went on to win the championships.

Hamlin was also fastest of the four in practice and had the best five lap average on Friday while also fighting a clutch issue that didn’t warrant any overnight changes. He walked into the media center in advance of this final press conference all smiles.

He was told that he is the sentimental favorite of NASCAR fans according to a poll from Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

“I think it’s chat bots that are skewing those polls,” he said with a laugh. “I just appreciate the support.”

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

How does Byron and the other three contenders feel about the wave of support for the veteran?

“I mean, I don’t really look at the app, Twitter,” Byron said with a smirk. “So I don’t know.”

Without skipping a beat, Hamlin had a retort.

“Just so you know, it’s called ‘X’ now,” Hamlin said with a guffaw.

Larson and Hamlin, while occasionally hard rivals, are also longtime friends.

“I think because, yeah, everybody likes a story like that where somebody nearing the end of their career wins, all that. It’s great,” Larson said, earnestly. “I mean, I can see why people would cheer for him. I’m a competitor. I obviously want to win. But it would be really cool to see somebody who has put in so much time to this sport and been so close so many times. 60 wins. I agree.”

But …

“I’m going to want to kick his ass tomorrow, but it’s not going to kill me if he wins, unless he runs me in the fence again.”

(Laugher across the room)

While everyone tried to insinuate that Hamlin was the favorite due to a myriad of historical statistics, the 44-year-old turned it around on the media and made it awkward on them right back.

For example, before Jenna Fryer of The Associated Press went to ask her question, Hamlin asked if there was a reason she was seated so far back in the room.

“Did you make someone mad?”

In fact, Fryar had drew the ire of NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell by asking a question on Friday insinuating that any hypothetical penalty against Hamlin could be perceived as controversial since he is suing the Sanctioning Body.

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Hamlin told Fryar ‘he’s behind you,’ in reference to NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps.

Fryar said ‘what are you doing’ and Hamlin said ‘I’m just lightening the mood,’ to laughter around the room.

But no, seriously, is this going too well for Hamlin?

“No, I don’t think so,” Hamlin said. “You can only help the things that you can control. Obviously, we’ll just do the best we can tomorrow for 312 laps. I hope it’s enough.”

As for the stat about the best qualifying driver winning the championship four of the past five years?

“Every time’s different,” Hamlin said. “I mean, I don’t know. Did William’s win from last week just automatically give him all this momentum? I finished last. I don’t really (pause) This sport is so week to week, it’s hard to draw. I know there’s always connections to statistics. Again, there’s just more variables this time around.

“It sounds good. It really does sound good. Statistics don’t do the work.”

What about his long clutch throw from Friday?

“Today everything felt pretty normal to me,” Hamlin said. “There was nothing alarming today that got my attention.”

Chase Briscoe, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Photo by: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images

Byron is going to start the race from the front row alongside Hamlin. Larson is going to start third behind them. Briscoe starts 12th and you can’t wonder how much his effort has been hurt by a flat tire in the first lap of practice on Friday that limited his track time.

Briscoe said he was ‘slow.’

“Yeah, I mean, I said ‘slow’, I was kind of joking,” Briscoe said. “They’re 1-2-3 and I’m 12th, right? Going back and trying to see what I can to for tomorrow. I didn’t get a lot of practice laps. I don’t really know what my car is going to do on the long run.

“That’s the big thing, trying to go see how the car drove differently from lap 1 through 5 to 20 on. I don’t know how my car is going to drive. Kind of see how they’re going to trend. That will be the biggest thing.”

Byron and Larson like their chances with what Hendrick Motorsports has given them.

“Yeah, I feel good,” Byron said. “I think so far it’s kind of what we’ve been working on and trying to improve. Yeah, I’m optimistic. I think everything so far this weekend has been pretty solid.”

His teammate agreed.

“I mean, I think for me, like fuel-wise, it doesn’t feel way different than normal like I was expecting,” Larson said. “I felt like pace-wise it seemed a little bit better than what I have been here in other practices in years past.

“It’s so hard to get a true judge on things in practice, so you just really got to see how it’s going to be tomorrow. “

There was a question about the warmer than usual temperatures for the November race at Phoenix. Larson took that as an opportunity to jab his opponents for wearing a cooling device under their fire suits, something the old school Hamlin doesn’t subscribe to.

“Talk to the guys that wear the cool suits,” Hamlin said, nudging Larson.
“I like the elements for guys who don’t wear cool suits, so…” Larson
“Nothing wrong with a little luxury.” Hamlin

While Larson absolutely wants another championship and Byron and Briscoe want their first, they also recognize what this opportunity means for Hamlin, racing for the championship in what is scheduled to be his third to last season.

“Anybody with common sense knows that Denny is more than capable of being a champion,” Briscoe said. “You don’t win 60 races … I think it would be a shame, right, if whenever he does decide to hang it up, he would be the best ever that’s never one, right? I think everyone knows that he is more than capable.

“Even myself, right? Like Kyle said, I’m a competitor. Like if I don’t win, I want Denny to win just so he can kind of have that on his résumé. So yeah, I think it doesn’t surprise me at all that the fans feel the same way.”