LONG POND, Pa. -- To hear Denny Hamlin tell it, his past success at Pocono Raceway means nothing heading into this Sunday's Pocono 500.

His lap speeds during Happy Hour indicate otherwise. But then there is rarely anything happy about Hamlin, whose own crew chief, Mike Ford, said Saturday that he's tired of hearing his driver complain about all the bad luck he's supposedly had this season and last.

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If you've got everything stacked against you, you're not going to run top 20 here. So is it really [lots of bad luck] or is it not? I say no. I say it's not even close.

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MIKE FORD

"Yeah, everybody talks about that luck deal because Denny gets out of the car and says, 'Oh, God! We have the worst luck of all!' Because he's the lead spokesperson for this team. But the thing is, it's not true," Ford said of his and Hamlin's No. 11 Toyota team, which is currently seventh in the Sprint Cup Series point standings. "I've got a hard job of trying to field that and sway that, because it's not true. You wouldn't be sitting in the top 10 if everything was stacked against you."

Earlier, Hamlin certainly painted a different, darker picture.

"It's just bad luck right now," Hamlin said when asked about his fortunes during recent races. "Of the last 36 races, I've had probably three races where we lucked into a better finish than what we deserved -- and I've probably had 20 that went the other way.

"It's worse than bad. I've had bad luck [before], but I don't know about this. I'm going to ride it out until it ends. That's the thing, though -- for as much bad luck as we've had, we're not 20th in points. We're still digging."

Ford said the point to remember is that if the supposed recent string of misfortune was as bad as his driver seems to believe, they would indeed be 20th or worse in the standings. And they're not.

"If you're hammered bad [with poor luck], you're not going to be in the top 10," Ford said. "If you really look at it, we have a whole lot more things go our way than what don't. I know he doesn't view out, so he thinks it's just all him -- which is completely untrue. We've had a lot of things go our way.

"If you've got everything stacked against you, you're not going to run top 20 here. So is it really [lots of bad luck] or is it not? I say no. I say it's not even close."

Ford said he constantly has to try to counter Hamlin's pessimism with some optimism -- sort of like playing good cop to his driver's mental bad cop.

"Oh, yeah. All the time. People are starting to understand that, and I just let it go," Ford said. "But then he has a field day and you have to say, 'OK, if things were stacked against you, where would you be?'

"It's not nearly what people think -- and they think it because they hear the head spokesperson for this team say it. They think it's true, but the reality of it is you wouldn't be in the Chase three years straight and you wouldn't be sitting in the top 10 right now if things were bad. He's never been in a situation where things are bad. So it's all in perception."

Hamlin admittedly is eager to return to Victory Lane, having last won in March of 2008 at Martinsville -- 43 races ago. He has made the Chase each of the last three seasons, finishing a career-high third in 2006.

That was the only time in his career, now in its fourth full year, that Hamlin won more than one race during a season. He did it by sweeping both races at Pocono, which one would think would give him confidence heading into Sunday's event.

Then again, maybe not.

"Our advantage here really ended when we had the [new car] come here," Hamlin said. "We felt like we had a real stronghold on this race track with the old car. We ran it here in 2007 as well; we didn't get any of those victories -- one because rain shortened it while we were on pit road.

"It just seems like with the [new car], we've had a about a third-place car here every time. I know what I want to feel here, but it's tough to get that feel with this new car. We kind of have to compromise and just hope that we hit that setup right when we unload."

It appeared during Happy Hour on Saturday -- a day after rain washed out Friday's one practice session and qualifying -- that the setup on Hamlin's car was where it needed to be. He turned the fastest lap in the final practice, with a top speed of 165.317 mph.

Then again, Ford warned not to read too much into that.

"As far as Happy Hour, I don't know the number but if you go back and look, I'll bet we've won more Happy Hours than anyone," Ford said. "I think he focuses on that, and goes out and busts off a lap at the beginning of practice. It's kind of a -- I won't say a momentum-builder or ego-builder -- but it's something where he can say, 'OK, I can run a fast lap.' But at the end of practice, it's not really worth a whole lot to you."