RICHMOND, Va. -- After what happened to Denny Hamlin in last year's Chase for the Sprint Cup, the last calamity he wanted to encounter on the way to this year's was another blown engine.

Yet that's what happened to the driver of the No. 11 Toyota last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Hamlin won the pole and led 74 laps before the engine gave way on Lap 143 -- less than halfway through the event. That misfortune stalled Hamlin's attempt to begin building momentum heading into this year's Chase, which commences following this Saturday's Air Guard 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Hamlin limps back to pit road at AMS after blowing an engine.

“

It isn't like something was being tried [that stressed the engine]. These were parts we have been running for a long time. You get some good ones and some bad ones.

”

-- MIKE FORD

Hamlin said he is trying not to let it bother him, attempting not to think about how last year his chances for a championship evaporated in the smoke that billowed from blown motors in Chase races at Charlotte and Talladega.

"You really can't let it affect you," Hamlin said Friday in between practices at RIR for the race that he won on the eve of the 2009 Chase. "I've let it affect me over the last few years when we have mechanical issues and things like that, but there's nothing I can do about it. All I can do is go out there and lead every lap until that happens. For me, it's more for the guys at the shop to kind of figure out what's going on with that.

"Unfortunately, our motor blew so bad last week that it was decimated by the time it got into the shop, so we really couldn't diagnose what exactly had gone wrong. For me, it was our first one all year for us -- so I'm going into the Chase thinking that we're not going to have any. If we don't, we're going to be up front when it really counts. If we don't have any mechanical failures and the driver keeps his head on straight, we'll be just fine come [the last race of the Chase at] Homestead."

Mike Ford, Hamlin's crew chief, admitted concern over having a motor go bad so close to the beginning of the Chase. But he reiterated Hamlin's contention that it was impossible to tell what exactly went wrong.

"It's always a concern," Ford said. "That's why you hate a Chase situation. It could happen at any time. That's the first one we lost in a race this year. I know we had two in the Chase last year, and those were the only two we had last year. It's still too many. But when you're asking for performance, you're going to have that happen sometimes.

"You can look at half a dozen things [in the engine]. They're all broke, but which happened first? You can't tell exactly what happened."

Ford added that occasional motor failures are certainly nothing new to NASCAR. It is the nature of the sport, he said.

"It isn't like something was being tried [that stressed the engine]," Ford said. "These were parts we have been running for a long time. You get some good ones and some bad ones. That's the reality of it. That's a harsh reality. Nobody in this garage is fail-safe in that department, and no one ever will be.

"They've had motors go bad in this sport since I've been in it, and long before that, too. And they'll have them go bad sometimes long after I'm gone."

Like all engines for the cars at Joe Gibbs Racing, the one that blew for Hamlin was prepared in-house by the JGR engine department. What team officials suspect is that a vendor had shipped some parts that turned out to be bad, even though they made it through JGR's quality-control inspections after their arrival.

When that happens, Ford said, entire batches of parts are discarded to help prevent the same issue from arising again. But that doesn't mean he and his driver aren't apprehensive heading into Saturday's race and the Chase that looms just beyond the Richmond horizon.

"I hate to tell you a cliche, but sometimes with parts it's Russian roulette," Ford said. "That's exactly what it is."

Of last week's engine failure, Hamlin added: "It was the first one for us all year. We've had other issues whether it be drive shaft or electrical or alternator or batteries or things like that. We've had a lot of different things go wrong -- but as far as the engine side, I'm pretty confident. Our stuff has been fairly reliable.

"We had the two engine failures last year in the Chase that kind of took us out of it. But for the most part, I feel like it never happened last week. I know it happened, but it was kind of a freak thing from what I understand and what the guys are telling me."

Regardless of what happens Saturday at Richmond, Hamlin will enter the Chase seeded second but essentially tied at the top of the re-set point standings with the same 50 bonus points as four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson. But after winning five of the first 15 races this season -- when he was the hottest driver on the Cup circuit -- Hamlin cooled considerably and is still looking to regain the magic he seemed to have behind the wheel earlier in the season.

He slipped all the way from fifth to 10th in points after last week's engine failure relegated him to a last-place finish in the field of 43 at Atlanta.

"Trust me," said Hamlin, "when we had our [regularly scheduled] team meeting this week and discussed everything that's happened over the last month, I said, 'I don't care what the sheet says, where we're at or this, that and the other. You get me cars that can finish and we can win the championship.' "

Related:
• Video: Hamlin blows engine, spins at Atlanta