Business as usual

LOUDON, N.H. – Don't tell Denny Hamlin, but he's in the Chase.

And he's doing pretty well.

At first blush, his "Hey, I'm just racing" attitude makes one wonder if he's really got a handle on the seriousness of the situation.

After all, this is the Chase. It's the most important 10 races of the NASCAR Nextel Cup season, but Hamlin is approaching them like he would any other race.

Maybe it's because Hamlin is just a rookie. But he's definitely got the right attitude.

"To me the pressure's off," Hamlin said. "The season's almost over. You might as well not even count points for me anymore."

Hamlin and his team have taken the approach that they've missed the Chase and that the goal now is not to win a title, but to just go out and win every race.

Not a bad game plan.

"That’s what we're going to do for these next five," he said. "Now, we're going to see where we stack up after that five and if we have a shot at it then we need to probably start looking at points and making sure we don’t get caught on pit road."

In Sunday's opening round of the Chase here at New Hampshire, Hamlin ran a nearly flawless race, starting from the third row and staying in the top 15 for the entire afternoon. Then, when it counted, he pushed his Monte Carlo SS toward the front and scored a fourth-place finish, marking his fifth top-five of the season.

Afterward, he still maintained a "business as usual" attitude.

"It's good for our whole FedEx team to come out of here with a great finish and hopefully this is just a building block for things to come," he said.

The fourth-place finish, behind such giants of the sport as race winner Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, didn't come without a few hold-your-breath-and-hope-for-the-best moments.

The most memorable one occurred early in the race when Harvick decided he could squeeze his car between Hamlin's and Jeff Burton's in Turn 4.

It could have been disastrous for all involved.

Instead, both Harvick – who later admitted he underestimated the difficulty of the move – and Burton escaped unscathed.

Hamlin, on the other hand, received a little bump from Harvick that sent him high into the turn and onto the marbles, the high area of the track where there is little traction. Venturing there usually results in a wreck.

Instead, Hamlin recovered nicely and continued on.

After the race, Hamlin joked about it.

"You'd think you'd be a little cautious, but it's all good," Hamlin said. "It didn't cost me, really, anything but about seven spots at the time.

"Had it probably caused us a bad day, I would have probably … never mind," he laughed.

Hamlin struggled after every pit stop and on restarts, as his Chevy never did seem to run right on fresh tires. But on long runs, he was able to make his car stick into the corners and pass at will. But cautions and the subsequent restarts came a bit too often at the end of the race, preventing Hamlin from charging closer to the front.

Still, Sunday's effort leaves the rookie a career-high second in Cup points with nine races remaining in the Chase. He now sits 35 points behind Harvick.

Despite an apparent cavalier attitude toward the Chase, Hamlin does understand the gravity of the situation. He's well aware that the drivers who regularly finish in the top 10 during the regular season are going to do the same in the Chase.

"Every time you turn around you've got eight top-10 [points] guys finishing in the top 10," he said. "I just think that you're not going to be allowed to finish 40th. That's my opinion."

After hearing the young rookie's theory on Chase success, his teammate and two-time Cup champion Stewart jokingly suggested he probably learned that by playing video games – which did help him earlier this year prepare for his first race at Pocono, which he won.

And Hamlin himself did finish in the top 10 in half of the races in the regular season. That shows consistency, and consistency wins championships in NASCAR.

"You always hear that you're going to have to win a race or two to be a champion but I guarantee you that if you finish second, you'd be the champion," Hamlin said. "You don’t necessarily have to win a race.

"It's all about consistency."

So how does Hamlin rate his chances now that's he had a successful race under his belt?

"It's all a crapshoot, really," Hamlin said. "We all just run consistent and do the best we can."