Hamlin working to repair points position, reputation

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Writers and photographers stood along the pit wall, waiting for the peace summit to begin. The cars of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty were conveniently lined up nose-to-tail in the qualifying line Friday at Kansas Speedway, offering a perfect opportunity for reconciliation between two drivers who went at each other on and off the track last week.

Nothing ever happened. Evidently, nothing needed to.

"My rule is, Sunday night at midnight, I stop thinking about the previous week," Petty said after his qualifying lap. "You spend too much time thinking about last week's race, you'll drive yourself crazy."

Petty vs. Hamlin

In the blue corner, at 6-2 and 195 pounds, Kyle Petty: "We were a little bit loose. I guess it's my fault. I watched the Busch race yesterday and I knew Denny was sick, I just didn't know he was hallucinating and needed three lanes to get up off the corner because he ran all over us. I guess he is in a race by himself."

In the red corner, at 6-0 and 170 pounds, Denny Hamlin: "I know Kyle gets run over a lot and the reason is he's so far off the pace. I firmly believe in my heart he was trying to get out of the way. I was right there on his bumper, on the inside of him. I think he was trying to go low and when he did, he checked up. That's the reason stuff happens."

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Besides, both drivers have larger matters to deal with, thanks in part to their scrape last Sunday at Dover International Speedway. Petty is 34th in owner points, just two positions out of having to race his way in to next week's event at Talladega. And Hamlin now finds himself staring up from the bottom of a 158-point crevasse separating him from leader Jeff Gordon in the Chase for the Nextel Cup standings.

"We've had a tough month or so," said the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who was third in points before NASCAR's regular season came to an end. "The races haven't gone smooth for us. Things have always happened in the races, whether it's a pit-road incident or whatever. If we can just get one smooth race behind us, I feel like that will give us the boost that we need. We're not out of it by any means."

The life raft Hamlin clings to is the 2006 stretch run turned in by reigning Nextel Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who at this point last year was 136 points off the lead. After Kansas, he trailed leader Jeff Burton by 156 points, just two fewer than Hamlin trails by now. The Hendrick Motorsports driver finished no worse than second in his next five starts, and won the championship with a ninth-place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Is it going to take that kind of run to get Hamlin back in contention? "I definitely think so," he said.

"That's what it's going to take. Right now, with the way everything has gone, if we get a top-seven finish, that's going to be our goal for the weekend. If we have the best car and end up sixth, that's OK. We're still on the right track. One hundred and fifty [points], people look at it and say, wow, that's tough, especially when you've got six or seven guys within 50 or 60 points. That's not that many points, it really isn't. One bad race, and we're right back within 50 or 60 points. People are quick to count someone out from the get-go, but you can come back from that. One hundred and fifty is not that tough."

But Hamlin is further behind than Johnson was at any point last year. His best stretch this season has been five consecutive finishes of ninth or better -- strong, for sure, but nothing to suggest he's capable of an epic run like the one Johnson unleashed last season. And even at his lowest point, after being wrecked by former teammate Brian Vickers at Talladega, Johnson never fell further than eighth. Hamlin has 11 other drivers to climb over, and needs a lot of help.

"What Jimmie did last year was pretty extraordinary, but you have to take in to account what the other guys contributed to it," Gordon said. "Not only did he come back and perform, but also those other guys had problems. More problems than they should have, including myself. We had three consecutive bad races as far as failures and crashes and blown engines and stuff like that. To me, we lost the championship as much as Jimmie went out there and won it. When that is the case, when you are behind that much, you can't just do it based on just outperforming them. They are going to have to run into some situations."

Hamlin's position in the standings wasn't the only thing that took a beating at Dover. His reputation suffered when he went after Petty in the garage area after contact between the two cars took them both out. Petty, believing Hamlin ran over him, unhooked the younger driver's window net and slapped at his helmet, a move that set Hamlin off.

No penalties were assessed for the altercation, even though Hamlin had to be physically restrained. "There's not a rule" against lowering another driver's window net, NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton said. "But those guys have to discuss their different situations. They're competitors, they're hot under the collar. It probably wasn't a bad thing that they discussed some things. They have to put it behind them."

Hamlin said he understands Petty's concerns, but from his vantage point the accident was almost unavoidable. And he doesn't feel he deserves a reputation as a hothead who drives over people.

"I've earned my way here," he said. "I didn't get here because of my last name or because we had money. I earned my way here based on performance and being respectful of other people. That's the mentality I took into last year, that's what I'm going to take into next year, and years down the road, if I'm still in the sport, that's the aspect I'm going to take. I'm trying my best to portray a good image, and I'm trying my best to be myself in the same breath. It's tough to have a personality and show it without being criticized. Right now I'm trying to find that balance of how I should be."

The incident raises a larger question of whether NASCAR's top-35 rule, which guarantees starting positions to the top 35 drivers in owner points, is promoting aggression on the racetrack.

"I do believe that it is more competitive racing for 35th, 36th and 37th in points than it would be without the top-35 rule, but that doesn't make it wrong," Burton said. "I don't think we can blame the points on people wrecking other people or those kinds of things. The drivers are to blame for that. Certainly the circumstances impact the drivers' response and reaction to whatever is going on, but at the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility lands on our shoulders."