Hamlin learning that even certainties take some time (cont'd)

So a driver who once attended races at Richmond in the grandstand, who holds an annual charity event at a local late-model track where he got his start, who's said winning here at NASCAR's highest level would feel like winning the Daytona 500, is left with another empty feeling at a facility where the spotlight always shines brightly on him. But let's be honest here -- the kid is 27, and has many, many more Richmond starts in front of him. This isn't like Mark Martin chasing a championship, and knowing all along that the window of opportunity is only open for so long. This isn't like Dale Earnhardt, battling the demons of restrictor-plate racing in a two-decade-old pursuit of the Daytona 500. This isn't even like Tony Stewart, burning to win at an Indianapolis Motor Speedway where he only gets one shot each year.

This is going to happen, eventually. The odds are just too overwhelming, the driver too good to think that Hamlin will go his entire career without ever celebrating a victory he could even picture in his mind's eye late in last year's event. Consider that Hamlin's 14th-place finish Saturday night was his third-worst performance in seven Cup Series starts at the .75-track, and he still led more laps than anyone else.

“

As a competitor, you can't let it go. You try and dig in and work a little harder next week. You can say you put it behind, but you never put it behind.

”

-- MIKE FORD, No. 11 crew chief

"You know it's frustrating for him, but the good thing is, he gets to try to again this fall. He doesn't have to wait a whole year before he gets a chance to try it again," said Stewart, who finished second. The Indiana native chased an Indianapolis victory for a decade in two different series before breaking through with a Brickyard win in 2005.

"I think there's some satisfaction at the same time with knowing how good he's been every time we've been here, especially the last two races in a row. Especially last year. Last year was the ultimate heartbreaker. I'm not sure it's ever going to feel that bad to him again. He runs really well here, and we got the chance to come in and get tires, they didn't get that opportunity, and it got away from them tonight. It's kind of like what happened to us at Indy -- you don't run that good here at a place consistently and go the rest of your life without winning. He's going to win multiple races here, because he's that good here. He's got this place figured out."

Hamlin's past results in Richmond would seem to bear that out, but they don't make the happenings of this past weekend any easier to swallow. "We've been in contention to win this race every time we've been here," Ford said. "You don't take anything out of it other than frustration. That's about it."

It couldn't have been the homecoming weekend Hamlin had envisioned. He didn't get the chance to compete in Friday night's Nationwide race, an event in which he was defending champion, because Joe Gibbs Racing had only two cars available. With Joey Logano needing as much seat time as possible and Busch running for a championship, Hamlin was the odd man out. Then came Saturday, and a pit stop under caution following a stretch during which Hamlin had led 125 of the previous 174 laps. He came in leading. His right-front tire changer dropped three lug nuts. He came out seventh, and never sniffed the front again. Although the team called it simply an error, more than a few crewmen have had issues this season with a longer wheel stud that requires a little more oomph with the impact wrench.

Either way, the damage was done. Even though Hamlin was still in the top 10, seemingly within striking distance, traffic and accidents precluded him from making up any ground. His frustration was evident over the radio. "With this traffic, Mike," he told his crew chief, "I can't do s---!" By the time the track-record-tying 15 cautions abated and the cars finally began spacing themselves out, it was too late.

"We didn't work in traffic as well as we needed to. I don't think we had as good a car as everybody thought, or we would have been able to make some of that up, and we didn't. If you're going to get a bad [pit stop], that was the time not to have one. That was the exact time in the race where people start setting up for the end. That's when you don't want to give up the track positions at that point in the race, and we couldn't get it back," Ford said.

"You saw when we got in traffic, we didn't really move forward. If we could run laps, no one could pass you. With these cars, it's so close. Track position is everything. We couldn't make any ground. It ended up a major, major mistake that you couldn't rebound from."

With that, the members of the No. 11 team loaded up the truck, changed clothes and began the journey back to their Huntersville, N.C., headquarters. Breaking down equipment post-race, they were serenaded by the sound of Busch gouging dark, celebratory doughnuts into the frontstretch asphalt. Something to ring in their ears until September, when they'll return to Richmond to try again.

"As a competitor, you can't let it go," Ford said. "You try and dig in and work a little harder next week. You can say you put it behind, but you never put it behind."

His driver was long gone by then, surely consoling himself inside a motorhome, or a helicopter, or surrounded by family and friends. Yet Hamlin couldn't have said it better himself.