Denny Hamlin may be preparing for the 2011 Daytona 500, but he hasn’t forgotten what happened at the end of last season.
2011 Daytona 500: Denny Hamlin Admits He ‘Wasn’t Prepared’ For Homestead
Hamlin opened up to Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel in a column posted Saturday morning, admitting he “wasn’t prepared” for the Homestead race after a major setback at Phoenix.
Wetzel quoted Hamlin as saying:
“I don’t think we were prepared to go out there and win Homestead,” Hamlin admitted. “I wasn’t prepared. It was such a letdown from Phoenix. It was tough to get my mind direct and ready to run.”
Though many people around the NASCAR garage have been expressing that sentiment since the final race of 2010 – when Hamlin lost the points lead to champ Jimmie Johnson – Hamlin himself hasn’t acknowledged the impact of the Phoenix race so bluntly until now.
Hamlin has admitted previously the Phoenix race was a tremendous setback, but told Wetzel the Cup was virtually lost before Homestead.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has said in the past that he didn’t know he was three-wide with Greg Biffle when he spun out early in the Homestead race, but told Wetzel that “looking back, I probably would be a little more cautious coming through the field.”
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