Why Denny Hamlin Is the Dark Horse to Watch in Final Rounds of 2014 Chase

Denny Hamlin has won only one race this season and barely avoided elimination from the 2014 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup last Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

So why is he smiling so much? Why does he look like a guy who just went on a run at a Las Vegas blackjack table and is now playing with house money?

Two reasons: No. 1, he figures the hard part of the Chase is over for him, and No. 2, he remembers how tense he was the last time he inched this close to sniffing a championship in 2010 and failed to close the deal. And he has no intention of going there again.

Hamlin is well-aware that now that he is one of the final eight combatants left vying for this 2014 title, the stars very well might be aligning in precisely the right order for him. That's why he's the dark horse to watch over these final four races, all of which will be run on tracks where the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing has experienced previous success.

As Hamlin told a group of media, including Bleacher Report, at the Eliminator Round media day Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina:

"

Really, this year expectations have been so low and we’ve flown so much under the radar that we don’t have any pressure from here on out. No one thought we would be here. And now, I love the shot we have of racing for the championship at Homestead. Looking at these next three racetracks, I can win at any of them easily.

"

A win at any of the next three tracks—Martinsville Speedway this Sunday, followed by Texas and Phoenix—automatically would assure Hamlin, or any race-winner, advancement into the winner-take-all championship race in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 16.

All race winners from the Eliminator Round, plus whichever non-winning driver or drivers are highest in the points after them, will comprise the final four drivers to race for the title at Homestead.

Hamlin has a lot of reasons to be confident, despite the fact that his only win this season thus far came during the Sprint Cup Series' first stop at Talladega way back in the spring.

He owns five career wins at Martinsville, where his average career finish of 8.8 is second only to Jeff Gordon's average of 7.0 among the remaining Chasers. Hamlin also has one win in his career at Texas, two at Phoenix and two at Homestead, where he happens to also be the defending race champion, having won the final race of the season there last year.

That's why he told FoxSports.com back at the beginning of the Chase that he thinks he'll be "the favorite" if he can make it to Homestead.

As he told Bleacher Report on Tuesday:

"

There is no reason we can’t be as competitive as these seven guys we’re racing against over these last four races. And truth be told, if you asked me where I would like to run one race, heads-up for the championship, I would pick either Martinsville or Homestead. I almost would pick Homestead, because we’ve had a lot of success there over the last few years.

"

The favorites to get to Homestead obviously are Brad Keselowski (six wins this season, including two in the Chase so far), Joey Logano (five wins, also including two in the Chase), Jeff Gordon (four wins) and Kevin Harvick (three wins). Combined, that foursome has won a total of 18 wins on the season, including all six of the Chase races thus far.

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But the points are reset after each elimination round, so everyone is on equal footing heading to the opening race of the Eliminator Round at Martinsville—where Hamlin is historically the most formidable of the remaining four Chasers (himself, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman).

Not only that, but after qualifying second but finishing a disappointing 19th at the .526-mile short track in the spring, Hamlin said he and his team spent several days over the summer testing at a non-NASCAR-sanctioned track in Sandusky, Ohio, that they believe best replicates Martinsville.

(Next season, they won't be able take part in such testing—per NASCAR rule changes recently announced, according to FoxSports.com—but this year it is perfectly legal at a private track).

"Hopefully, it will pay off. We think it will," he said of the extra testing.

Of Martinsville in general, Hamlin said it's where the playing field is leveled for teams such as his that have struggled to match the speed of the cars driven by Team Penske's Keselowski and Logano, Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports and Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing at many of the bigger tracks.

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“It’s a huge opportunity for us," Hamlin said. "As average as our team has been in general this year, when we go into a short track where horsepower doesn’t matter, aero doesn’t matter—and it’s about the driver and mechanical setups—I feel like those are our strong suits."

Finally, there is the matter of the last time Hamlin was this close to possibly nailing down a title. It was 2010, and Hamlin actually entered the next-to-last race of the season at Phoenix with a seemingly comfortable 33-point lead over Jimmie Johnson under the old Chase format.

But after he led 190 of 312 laps, his pit crew failed to get enough fuel in his car late in the race and he faded to 12th, while Johnson finished fifth and cut Hamlin's lead in half heading to Homestead.

The following week, a visibly shaken Hamlin wrecked early and never recovered as Johnson went on to win his fifth championship.

Hamlin insisted Tuesday that he learned a valuable lesson that year—one he intends to put to use this year:

"

Now that we’ve been given this second life again, what we learned in 2010 is to have fun. So we’re going to have fun no matter what. I always said if you give me that Homestead 2010 chance back, I promised I would win it. It’s hard to do that, knowing you’ve got to race three other guys heads-up and you’ve got to finish the best of the four—but I just want that chance again and I think I’ll make the most of it this time. This format is tailor-made for an average team that has just been squeaking by and squeaking by to get hot at the right time. Next thing you know, you could steal a championship.

"

Sort of like Johnson did in 2010.

And Hamlin is right. While he's not the favorite heading into these final four races, he appears to be in position and in the right frame of mind to shock the racing world and very possibly win it.

Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand.

Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report as well as covering NASCAR as a writer and editor for FOXSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.