AVONDALE, Ariz. -- The No. 11 pit box stood at the extreme end of the long, curving pit road at Phoenix International Raceway, right about at the transition between the frontstretch and the first turn. Relief driver Casey Mears sat on top, on a bench behind shock specialist Tim Sparkman. Ever-present gnats flitted in the late-afternoon sunlight as the event's 100-lap mark -- Denny Hamlin's loose, self-imposed deadline for getting out of the car -- gradually approached.

“

I knew that if I got out of the car, I was going to hear all kinds of stuff from everyone else saying I gave up on the team. That's one thing I'm not going to do is give up on these guys.

”

-- DENNY HAMLIN

One hundred laps came.

One hundred laps went.

And still Hamlin stayed in the vehicle, despite a left anterior cruciate knee ligament that had been surgically repaired only 11 days earlier. Later, as an orange-tinted sunset bloomed behind the Estrella Mountains, he stayed in the vehicle despite being two laps down because of fender damage and a battery problem. Hamlin stayed in the vehicle all the way until the end, until the finish of a bitter, frustrating, minimum-points effort, until tire specialist Patrick Mullen helped pull him through the driver's side window opening while fireworks shot overhead celebrating Ryan Newman's surprise victory.

How much was he hurting? "More than I can tell you," he said afterward in a darkened garage area. "I'm pretty sure I didn't do any damage or anything like that, but I'm absolutely exhausted right now."

He had every excuse to get out. The combination of body damage incurred from contact with Kurt Busch and a disastrous attempt to change out a flagging battery took Hamlin out of the Subway Fresh Fit 600 when it was barely a third of the way through. No one would have thought any less of him if, during the long pit stop necessitated by the battery switch, he had decided he'd endured enough and turned the car over to Mears. No question, he was in discomfort -- on the pace laps he reminded his team to give him water at every opportunity, and at times his voice on the radio was barely above a whisper. Yet he hung in there uncomplainingly, only referring to his condition when someone else brought it up. (Continued)