Hurting Hamlin in middle of Shootout practice crash

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Two multi-car accidents in Thursday's pair of practice sessions for Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway sent six teams in the all-star field to backup cars.

Denny Hamlin, one of four-time defending Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson's chief preseason favorites to contend for the 2010 title, was one of six drivers involved in a grinding Turn 1 accident that ended the first practice after little more than 20 minutes running of the scheduled 45-minute session.

Hamlin, who two weeks ago tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee playing pickup basketball, had his No. 11 Toyota outside Mark Martin's No. 5 Chevrolet when Martin moved over, made contact with Hamlin's car and ignited the swirling melee.

When the dust cleared Hamlin, Martin, Greg Biffle, Jamie McMurray and Clint Bowyer -- who was testing the No. 29 Chevrolet for teammate Kevin Harvick, who was ill with the flu at his North Carolina home and wasn't planning to travel to Daytona Beach until Thursday evening -- had to go to backup cars.

Three minutes into the second, one-hour practice, Kurt Busch's No. 2 Dodge made contact with the No. 42 Chevrolet of Juan Montoya on the frontstretch, which turned Busch into the outside wall. Damage was severe enough to send Busch to a backup.

"We were just trying to get up to speed," Busch said after only turning two complete laps. "We've got a lot of wrecked race cars in a short practice already."

NASCAR created some rule changes designed to spice up the racing, and several drivers said it succeeded. Looking at a black-and-white transcript, it was impossible to tell if Biffle was being honest or sarcastic.

"That's what we were looking for -- aggressive bump-drafting [and] trust me, we're not finished," Biffle said. "What are we, 20-30 minutes into practice? It's gonna be awesome."

Biffle said not only did he not have "a sense that something was about to happen," he didn't know what had occurred. A number of drivers said from their cockpits, the cars around them appeared to be a handful to drive.

"Mine didn't have as much speed, so it was driving fine," John Andretti said of his No. 34 Ford. "But it looked like a lot of the others were either plowing or spinning out really about the same as it's always been."

"I couldn't see over to my right," Biffle said of where Hamlin and Martin made contact. "It happened beside me, so I didn't see anything happen."

McMurray agreed with Biffle's assessment.

"I don't really know what happened, so I couldn't place blame on anybody [but] it does seem awful early to race that hard in practice for a race that doesn't pay points," McMurray said. "The No. 5 [Martin] got turned around. You go to the bottom to try to get away from that, but you can only turn left and the car will only go so quick. I didn't get clipped very hard, just barely. It's amazing how fast those cars come back across the track." (Continued)