Denny Hamlin expects a ‘different weekend’ this week at Gateway as the track marks its maiden cup race
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Denny Hamlin
NASCAR will hit the World-Wide Technology Raceway this weekend for all of the NASCAR series and ARCA Mendes series training as the drivers will go hard on the Gateway track which hosts its first cup race and a debut track race for the Next-Gen car. Going into the 15th round of Cup Racing the battle for the playoff spots is heating up along with the battle for championship table lead, both of which are going to play a major part in the track.
Going to the 1.25-mile oval the No:11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry driver Denny Hamlin will be amongst the drives to look out for as he is on a good streak for the last couple of weeks. The co-owner of 23X1 Racing for the first time this season will enter a race after 3 consecutive top 5 or top 10 finishes and his win last weekend at Charlotte Coco-Cola 600 will also help him a lot.
The Gateway track is one of a kind when it comes to the tracks in the Cup Schedule especially due to the fact the track has short track characteristics though it’s a mid-size Raceway. The long straightaways and tight turns will be a challenge to overcome for all the drivers. Now Denny Hamlin has come forth revealing his opinions on how the race might play out and how important is to win here for the championship.
Find out what Denny Hamlin had to say about the coming cup race
Denny Hamlin acknowledged that he has no idea what will happen on the track and went on to say that he is hopeful about a multiple-lane race as he saw the turn one and two opening up a little bit. He pointed out that the turn four and turn three might prove to be a challenge as he is unsure about getting multiple lanes to race more here but shred his optimism that you never know what might happen on the track.
“I don’t know. Turns one and two, it seemed like were starting to widen out a little bit. Hopefully, we can have multiple lanes. (Turns) three and four will probably be a little bit of a challenge to have multiple lanes, but you never know,” Denny Hamlin said.
Denny Hamlin went on to say that the Next-Gen cars are not that font of single-lane tracks as it’s more of a track that likes spread out the field. He went on to share his optimism that the Gateway being one of the best short tracks will work like one as he finds the car struggling in short, flat tracks. Denny Hamlin shared his optimism that he expects the weekend to be a different one compared to flat tracks that came early this season.
“Our cars don’t like single-lane tracks. They like ones that can spread out, hopefully, this is one of the better short tracks that we have. It drives like a short track. It’s something that we certainly need to work on – short, flat tracks, it seems like the cars struggled, but you never know. This weekend could be different,” Denny Hamlin added.
Denny Hamlin, when asked about how important is a cup race win in the track might turn out to be said that they might be important but there is a lot of racing left in the regular season with teams developing and learning from mistakes. He added that leading here this weekend will not make you the championship favourite.
“Yeah, maybe, but we are so far off ways from it. Teams are still developing and learning like that, and I just don’t know you are going to take whoever runs upfront here and say wow, they are going to be the championship favorite. There is just too much time between the two,” says Denny Hamlin.
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