Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Denny Hamlin: "I Beat Your Favorite Driver, Again"

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Denny Hamlin: "I Beat Your Favorite Driver, Again" · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Yeah, exciting. From my standpoint, yeah, it was
• 0:04
  a perfect day. I mean it didn't, we didn't
• 0:07
  leave every lap, but certainly a perfect day in the sense of, you
• 0:10
  know, being fastest in practice and fastest in qualifying and
• 0:13
  then winning the race. So we haven't had too many of
• 0:16
  those in my career for sure. And the clashes, obviously the
• 0:20
  other ones that we had won were at Day at Daytona.
• 0:23
  So to knock off another venue where we've won is obviously
• 0:27
  very special. Yeah, Danny, I'm just curious
• 0:29
  how your shoulders doing and whether it was worse or better
• 0:32
  than what you thought was going to be.
• 0:34
  I I appreciate your concern, Bob.
• 0:36
  It's it is. It's very good.
• 0:39
  I, you know, we knew that this race is going to fatigue it a
• 0:43
  little bit. Adrenaline is such a factor.
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  I mean, like, you know, last year, even though it's really,
• 0:49
  really bad, it's adrenaline once you get in the car.
• 0:51
  It's just it's a lot different. These guys hood up.
• 0:54
  I can sympathize with that. But you know, overall it feels
• 0:59
  better than I thought it would considering you know, how far
• 1:02
  you have to crank the wheel at this racetrack.
• 1:05
  But it, you know, the race is just short enough to fatigue it
• 1:08
  a little bit. So when I get to Daytona, it'll
• 1:10
  be nice and strong. Jordan Bianchi from The
• 1:12
  Athletic. Two questions.
• 1:14
  First question, it's easy to dismiss this race and say you
• 1:16
  won this race at the exhibition, etcetera, etcetera.
• 1:19
  But you look at Joey Logano 2 years ago, wins this race, wins
• 1:22
  the championship. You look at Truex last year,
• 1:24
  wins this race, wins the regular season title.
• 1:26
  Is there any correlation or anything that you can take away
• 1:28
  from this that applies to that, or is this just a happy
• 1:30
  coincidence? Yeah, I mean, it's tough to say.
• 1:35
  I got to sneeze. It'll happen the next 20 seconds
• 1:37
  or so. But I'm trying to get too far
• 1:39
  into my thought before I had to stop.
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  But I would say, you know, this track does.
• 1:45
  There's some correlation to some short tracks that we run.
• 1:48
  So it's not like a complete throwaway that we don't have any
• 1:54
  idea whether we're going to be good or not.
• 1:56
  I guess the correlation would be for me personally is that, you
• 1:59
  know, the first year here we had some, you know, issues and our
• 2:03
  setup wasn't very good. Then we went to the very first
• 2:05
  Martinsville spring race and we're terrible also.
• 2:08
  And then when we ran really good here last year, we went to the
• 2:10
  spring race at Martinsville, ran really, really well.
• 2:12
  So I think there is some small correlations that seem to you
• 2:18
  know be you know somewhat substantial.
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  I mean I it's I always said there's not really I don't know
• 2:27
  you you've seen different circumstances where someone wins
• 2:30
  you know this race and then there nothing happens in the
• 2:33
  regular season. Right.
• 2:34
  So it just seems like the last two there's been something.
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  Now is that a clash thing because it, you know, it is a
• 2:40
  short track? I'm not really sure, but
• 2:42
  certainly believe that. You know, I I've told you guys
• 2:45
  that this year. I'm really optimistic about the
• 2:48
  season and how much we can win. And what is the challenge of
• 2:53
  starting restarting behind your teammate in a late race
• 2:55
  situation, and especially a teammate that doesn't have a lot
• 2:58
  of experience and it's a physical race and not wanting to
• 3:01
  rough him up too much and what that line is?
• 3:03
  Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I I certainly knew, you
• 3:05
  know, tie battling for his first win.
• 3:07
  I wasn't going to do anything to try to compromise that luck.
• 3:10
  I was just a lucky I drew the right ping pong ball in the
• 3:14
  circumstances that happened off the Turn 2 with him and Joey and
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  it's just kind of opened up the bottom for me.
• 3:19
  So you know it was really fortunate.
• 3:21
  I didn't feel like I really knocked anyone out of the way in
• 3:24
  the second-half of the race. I mean, surely were some bumper
• 3:26
  bumper tag, but man, once you get in that sandwich and you're
• 3:30
  getting pushed from behind, so you're pushing the person in
• 3:32
  front of you, it's almost like you can't stop it.
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  Like it's it's just interesting how it all plays out.
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  But my goal was certainly to not have contact with Ty or affect
• 3:43
  that just simply because of you know, it's the kids first
• 3:47
  opportunity, real opportunity to go to go win.
• 3:50
  But also I'm going to do everything I can to win in in a
• 3:52
  very fair manner and I feel like that's what we did.
• 3:56
  We'll go to Daniel, Zack, then Jeff and in the back.
• 3:59
  Dale McFadden French frenchstretch.com We got two
• 4:02
  questions with given how quickly the rescheduling happened today,
• 4:08
  what do you think the vibe was out there get given the last
• 4:12
  minute nature, the crowd, how how did it get come on for?
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  You. I think we should consider
• 4:17
  tonight's success only because if it didn't happen tonight, it
• 4:21
  was not. I just don't think it was going
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  to happen at all And so while you know there were be some
• 4:26
  people that are upset about not being able to use her ticket for
• 4:29
  tomorrow. They weren't going to use it
• 4:30
  Monday either. So and and then Tuesday I'm not
• 4:33
  sure was an option. It just was this thing was just
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  going to snowball into a really straining the teams, all the
• 4:43
  people here at the Coliseum to have to get this thing converted
• 4:45
  back over. Tonight was the only option to
• 4:48
  get this thing in. And I'm really happy the NASCAR,
• 4:51
  you know, make unprecedented changes to to make sure that the
• 4:54
  fans at least saw a race. And if this is the last clash at
• 4:57
  the Coliseum, we go somewhere else next year.
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  How do you sum up this initial three-year experiment?
• 5:03
  I think it was a success. I mean certainly you can't argue
• 5:06
  it from viewership standpoint. I I certainly think that you
• 5:10
  know it's got merit and going different places but I think La
• 5:14
  La was very good to us and and I think we were good for this
• 5:18
  community as well. If you look around the the the
• 5:20
  stands, it's more diverse than what you'll see at most race
• 5:22
  cars at most race tracks. So I think it was a win for
• 5:26
  everyone. Zach.
• 5:28
  Zachsternionascar.com Danny, you mentioned Ty.
• 5:32
  What did you see from him tonight?
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  Obviously he LED 84 laps. He was, he was a strong
• 5:35
  contender. What did you see from him and I
• 5:38
  guess as a kind of Part B to that, how have you seen him
• 5:42
  mature over the last year and a half?
• 5:44
  Yeah, I mean he's just gotten better, right?
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  I mean he's he's very young. He's, he's green.
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  I mean he he is definitely green.
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  But I have a lot of interactions with with Ty.
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  Obviously he, you know he flies to and from races with me each
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  and every week and you know he, he asked a lot of questions and
• 6:00
  so that's certainly something that it's going to take time and
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  you know I think he's going to have tremendous success this
• 6:08
  year. I think he's going to be part of
• 6:09
  the playoffs. I don't think they're that's
• 6:10
  going to be a big shock to anyone.
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  But you know he's far ahead of where I was when I was his age
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  for sure, when I was his age. I definitely still running late
• 6:23
  models for sure and I I don't even know if I'd won a late
• 6:25
  model race yet at this point. So he's certainly way ahead of
• 6:29
  that, that step. And you know we're going to be
• 6:33
  talking about him for 20 plus years, right?
• 6:36
  So he's he's got a great foundation.
• 6:37
  He's going to be with a great team for the rest of his career.
• 6:40
  So he's got everything lined up right for him and it's very
• 6:43
  easy. It will be very easy for him to
• 6:45
  be tough on himself or you know, pick apart what he could or
• 6:49
  should have done, but he's going to have so many more
• 6:51
  opportunities. It's hardest.
• 6:52
  It's hard to look that far out when you're that age, but he
• 6:55
  certainly needs to put in perspective that he's really
• 6:58
  making some big strides and you know he's starting to race the
• 7:02
  big boys. Going back to Jordan's question
• 7:04
  about correlation in terms of this clash and and future
• 7:07
  success, just building momentum from this weekend, how
• 7:09
  significant is that for the 11 team to start off on the right
• 7:12
  foot? Obviously it's been a great
• 7:13
  couple of years, the last couple really for the last five or so,
• 7:16
  6 or so years for you and this team.
• 7:19
  But to build momentum tonight into the season, how significant
• 7:23
  is that? Yeah, I mean, probably the 11
• 7:25
  team's the only thing that really got anything out of
• 7:27
  tonight. You know, realistically
• 7:29
  speaking, I I either mentioned on another interview that like
• 7:33
  if your favorite driver didn't even make the race, I'm not
• 7:35
  really sure It's a huge deal, right?
• 7:38
  It just isn't. There's only one winner that
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  comes out of this weekend. I mean ask how how he feels
• 7:43
  about it. He's just like probably, you
• 7:45
  know, I think he was on the podium last year and there's
• 7:48
  just not much correlation. There is some, but not a lot and
• 7:52
  so there's there's only one winner and certainly it's the
• 7:54
  the 11 team tonight and we got a few new members on our team,
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  both on the road team and engineering.
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  So to break them in with a victory, you know we spoil them
• 8:05
  early. We'll go to Jeff Lee and in the
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  back it. Looks like every corner your car
• 8:15
  was smoking going to the corners.
• 8:17
  How did you not you know how how did you win the race in that
• 8:21
  with your car not being able to turn that well I guess and and
• 8:24
  how did you not get run over by Kyle and last restart who said
• 8:27
  in here that he wanted to knock you out of the way if you had a
• 8:29
  chance. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what
• 8:32
  was locking. I mean, I I could feel it
• 8:34
  locking up, but I didn't see the smoke or know how bad it was.
• 8:38
  And with these cars, just it's it's the configuration of the
• 8:43
  track, right? We're we're breaking heavily and
• 8:45
  we're starting to turn. And once you take the load off
• 8:47
  the left front, it's it, it smokes it.
• 8:49
  And if you smoke it one good time, that thing has a flat
• 8:52
  spot. So as it goes around and you go
• 8:54
  to the next corner, it's going to find that flat spot again and
• 8:56
  it's just going to keep making it worse.
• 8:58
  So once I did it one good time, that was it.
• 9:01
  You know, I was, I was destined to do it just about every corner
• 9:04
  unless I really backed up my braking and then I was going to
• 9:07
  get run over anyway. So I just said screw it, you
• 9:11
  know, Hopefully the tire stays together.
• 9:13
  I've got to smoke this thing to keep my entry speed up high
• 9:15
  enough to where I don't get pummeled.
• 9:17
  And, you know, fortunate for me, Kyle was behind me.
• 9:20
  There was probably no other person, teammate or not, like
• 9:24
  there's no other person. I'd rather have third in that
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  situation because he's just always been super fair to me.
• 9:30
  Go, Lee. Spencer SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
• 9:35
  Sorry if I this was asked when I was outside, but how does the
• 9:39
  shoulder feel and does winning kind of, you know, cure some of
• 9:43
  those ailments? Yeah, I mean it feels good to me
• 9:46
  now. I mean certainly I I can feel
• 9:48
  now I kind of let things go it's it's or it's, it's aching and
• 9:52
  whatnot. But like that's very normal.
• 9:54
  I mean when I do PT it aches the next day as well.
• 9:56
  So it's all just part of getting better and stronger and you know
• 9:59
  I found while running the SIM that this race was far more
• 10:04
  strenuous than a Las Vegas or a Daytona will be.
• 10:08
  So I think that we've we've kind of passed the test that we're
• 10:12
  going to be good to go to start the season and you know it's
• 10:14
  certainly not going to be a factor for the 11 car.
• 10:17
  OK, we're going back. Alan Boscia Net 25 Compare your
• 10:22
  thoughts after lap 10 restart versus lap one restart and also
• 10:28
  if there is a second season of NASCAR full speech this race
• 10:31
  make it be a feature. Yeah, certainly.
• 10:34
  I mean the the, the collaboration between the city
• 10:38
  and NASCAR over these last three years has been awesome and it'd
• 10:41
  be great to see that. I mean there's probably very few
• 10:43
  people right, that you know that watch that series on Netflix and
• 10:48
  and know that, hey, by the way they built a track inside of a
• 10:51
  football stadium as well. So yeah, that's not part of the
• 10:54
  story. But certainly I think that it
• 10:56
  just gave the fans just a little bit of taste of what this sport
• 10:59
  is about and what it can do. And I think there's still really
• 11:04
  a lot of stories to be told. And so I think you're more than
• 11:07
  likely you'll, you'll see something like that again this
• 11:09
  year and this is a great opportunity to to tell the story
• 11:12
  about LA and that collaboration and.
• 11:14
  Your thoughts between the last time restart versus?
• 11:18
  Last one, restart. Are you talking about the end of
• 11:20
  the race that tend to. Yeah.
• 11:22
  I mean it's so different because each situation is different and
• 11:26
  I only controlled a couple of the restarts, but obviously I I
• 11:30
  didn't do a great job because I kept overshooting the corner and
• 11:33
  then that's when I flat spotted the tires.
• 11:35
  But I mean I was nervous. I I just, you know, not nervous
• 11:39
  like I'm excited and worried about making a mistake.
• 11:42
  I was more nervous as I'm going to get knocked out of the way
• 11:45
  here. Like I just knew that well we're
• 11:47
  up front again that's just going to wait on the you know as Jeff
• 11:49
  Gluck would say the piano would fall right on top of us and the
• 11:52
  Roadrunner and boom there there we go.
• 11:55
  So I just think that you know you when we've had as bad much
• 12:00
  bad luck as I have you always kind of wait on the the bad shoe
• 12:03
  to drop. But I I just it was it was
• 12:05
  fortunate for me to be in the situation I was and had I would
• 12:09
  I be able to get around the 54 had he not had the issue right
• 12:12
  there in the no way right. But it just I was able to
• 12:15
  capitalize on that opportunity when it happened.
• 12:18
  So the restarts are tough, especially at this track where
• 12:22
  you have high breaking. You know the the 2nd, 3rd place
• 12:25
  car don't care about your agenda and they're just going to run
• 12:28
  through you and force you up off the bottom.
• 12:30
  And that's how most the passes get made here.
• 12:33
  We'll go to Brian and Rob, then we'll wrap with Daniel.
• 12:37
  Congratulations. First of all Danny, did you
• 12:39
  notice any discernible difference with the new Toyota
• 12:42
  body style versus the previous two iterations here at the
• 12:46
  Clash? No, not really.
• 12:50
  It's there's not enough corner speed to really tell.
• 12:55
  You know we'll we'll get an indication of kind of like drag
• 12:58
  at Daytona, right. We're going to get an indication
• 13:00
  of downforce when we get to the mile and a half race tracks, but
• 13:04
  certainly feel like it, it had a lot of speed, right.
• 13:07
  We we got on the pole by more than 1/10 on a track where
• 13:09
  everyone runs nearly the same speed.
• 13:11
  So I think that it obviously they spend a lot of time between
• 13:16
  Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota and 2311 developing, you know this
• 13:20
  new XSD and obviously it's one for one now, but I still think
• 13:24
  it's too early to really draw any conclusions to you know
• 13:27
  where it's going to be better. We'll go to Rob.
• 13:34
  Rob Edelstein, TV Guide Magazine Another question about the
• 13:37
  Netflix show. You were a big part of the the
• 13:40
  early part of it. First, were you happy with how
• 13:44
  it all came out in terms of how you were shown?
• 13:47
  And if you had the editing pen, what would you have changed?
• 13:53
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think that there was when you
• 13:58
  set out from the very beginning that it's going to be X amount
• 14:00
  of episodes, this amount of time per episode.
• 14:03
  They got to get through, they got to get through the 10 weeks,
• 14:06
  right? And so you average that out.
• 14:08
  That's two weeks per episode. Yeah, there's a lot that goes on
• 14:12
  in that two weeks. Right.
• 14:13
  And so but you also just, if people want more, that's a good
• 14:20
  thing. Like, I think that they're like
• 14:22
  what I'm saying is there is more stories to tell.
• 14:24
  And when this thing comes back around in a year or so, you're
• 14:28
  probably going to see maybe some different characters in it.
• 14:30
  You're going to see more in depth, you know, information and
• 14:34
  things, you know, more lifestyle stuff from other guys.
• 14:37
  And so I think there's there's a lot to tell.
• 14:40
  I mean, even from the technical aspect of it, you know, we
• 14:44
  didn't tell a whole lot of the stories of like what makes these
• 14:47
  cars go around in circles every single week.
• 14:49
  You know, what you see on Sunday is just the end product.
• 14:52
  What goes into all that is it's it's amazing to see hundreds of
• 14:58
  people that all have a hand in making those cars, making the
• 15:02
  show happen. And that even from NASCAR
• 15:04
  standpoint, what it takes to put on the show, right.
• 15:07
  I think that there's a lot to tell and certainly, but I
• 15:10
  thought it was a very good snapshot of NASCAR and it kind
• 15:15
  of told a story of we race for this long, then we have a
• 15:18
  playoff and then here's how the playoffs work.
• 15:21
  That helps with the with the new NASCAR fans that like it
• 15:24
  essentially was about four hours of a NASCAR one O 1.
• 15:28
  You know for for any newbie that had you know just hey I don't
• 15:32
  want to I I want to I don't want to watch a race because I don't
• 15:35
  know what's going on. If you watch that you're going
• 15:37
  to get a now you're going to know when you flip the channel
• 15:39
  kind of what's going on in the middle of the race now.
• 15:41
  So that I think that accomplished that and you know
• 15:44
  hopefully in the in going forward they they have another
• 15:46
  one and you'll see even more stories.
• 15:50
  We'll wrap up front with Daniel. It's only been five days since
• 15:57
  the series debut, but I was wondering like in your role as
• 16:00
  owner, have you heard and we've we've heard some data about the
• 16:05
  the shows, the top five in the US, top ten in the UK, stuff
• 16:08
  like that. But in in your role as an owner,
• 16:10
  has have you heard from NASCAR any really concrete data about
• 16:15
  how many people have consumed this just out of the gate?
• 16:19
  And did you have any idea what like what their expectations
• 16:21
  were going in? To this week?
• 16:23
  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the only data I have is
• 16:27
  on my social media and I would think, you know, most of the
• 16:30
  avid fans probably follow me in some sort anyway, right?
• 16:34
  What I've seen is just a big jump of of following over the
• 16:39
  last five days and when you look at the area where they're from,
• 16:43
  their gender, all that stuff, it's it's a different crowd.
• 16:46
  So I think that certainly it's it's getting out to people that
• 16:51
  probably have not seen NASCAR before from what I can see.