Denny Hamlin

Denny Hamlin

Denny was born in 1981 and he started racing go karts at the young age of just 7 years old. In 1997 at age 15 he won the WKA manufacturers cup, and at age 16 he was already racing ministocks. He also won the pole position at Langley Speedway, and then won that race. In 1998 he moved to the Grand division and then in 2000 he moved to Late Model Stock Cars, and by 2002 he had won ten races. By 2003 he out did himself and had 25 wins, with 30 poles, and won 36 races. Still competing in Late Model Stock Cars full time in 2004, he was also signed to a driver development contract. He competed in 5 Nascar races and had a 10^th place finish in the Craftsman Truck Series whish was as Indianapolis Raceway Park. After this he ended up racing at Talladega for his first ARCA RE/MAX Seriers, where he finished 3^rd. His big Busch series debut was later that year where he finished 8^th at the Darlington Raceway. He ended up earning 1,064,110.00 and finishing 5^th in the final championship with standings as a rookie in that seires. In 2005 he ran his first Nextel Cup Series with 3 top 10 finishes. He then had his first career Busch win March 5^th 2006, and his first Cup Series at Pocono 500. Denny Hamlin then got his second career win on July 23 also at Pocono Raceway, he was now the 2^nd rookie in Nextel Cup to win both races in one season. In 2007 he finished 28^th in the Daytona 500 and won his 3^rd career cup race. For Hamlin both 2007 and 2008 were about the same as far as winnings, although he did move up to 8^th in points. In 2009 he ended up winning his third tri-oval at Pocono, and this race was very emotional for him as he lost his grandmother that Friday. He also then won the the race at Richmond which was his home track. He ended his 2009 season with 5^th place in the overall NASCAR standings for the 2009 Sprint Cup Standings.  

2010

Hamlin expected great success during this year's season for his career, however in Jan. he hurt his left knee while playing basketball. They later decided that they would wait for surgery until after the season. Denny then in late april ended up having surgery to prevent any more damage to his knee. First race just 3 weeks after his surgery on April 19th he won at the Texas Motorspeedway which made this his 2nd victory for the season. Then at Darlington Raceway on May 8th he went down victory lane one more time. He was able to win both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series Events that weekend, which was the first driver to do so at Darlington since 1993.Then not many races later, Hamlin dominated the track at Pocono Raceway leading the most laps for the Gillette Fuzion ProGlide 500 Presented By Target and his 4th win of the season. Just one week Denny set a career high taking his 5th win this year at Michigan. This past weekend 8-15 Hamlin started in 33rd postion during the carfax 400, and was able to get in the lead. Then in the last turn of the race Kevin Harvick stole the spot beating him by 1.310 seconds! Denny took home 2nd that evening and moved up three positions in standing. He now is 3rd (8-16-2010)in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and is behind Kevin Harvick by 353 points!