Hamlin talks Daytona expectations with new crew chief

But the air of invincibility left Hamlin with only vestiges and remembrances of his top-shelf performance the following week in Race No. 2, at Phoenix International Raceway. Suddenly, the Daytona front-runner was playing catch-up, a theme that recurred more than he would've liked.

"We hadn't really talked about where our program was, and if you watched just those two races, you would've thought we were going to win every race in the entire season," Hamlin said of his wins in the 2014 Sprint Unlimited and his end of the Budweiser Duel 150-mile qualifying races. "We got to (the second race), what's going to be Atlanta this year, and next thing you know, reality sets in and we're like, 'Uh oh, we're behind.'

"You've got to take performance at Daytona with a grain of salt and know that last year's success doesn't equal success this year, nor does it mean it's going to be success for the remaining race tracks. I can just take it year by year, and I'm thankful for the results I do get when they're good."

Though it's season-long accomplishments he's after, Hamlin wouldn't mind adding Daytona 500 laurels to his trophy case to get 2015 off a fast start. He avoided a major setback in Wednesday practice after contact with Danica Patrick caused little more than cosmetic damage to his primary car. 

Hamlin's run through Speedweeks last year established his team as one of the pre-race favorites. Though the idea of NASCAR parity reaches its highest point at restrictor-plate tracks Daytona and Talladega, Hamlin insists the playing field can never quite be 100 percent level.

"It's more the chess game if you're going to have it all work for winning these races than it is the equipment," Hamlin said. "I think it's a cliché when everyone says, 'Anyone can win here,' and anyone can if it's just handed to you in your lap and everyone else crashes. If they don't, you've got to figure out -- you've got to be smarter than the rest of the guys."

Hamlin's plate-track savvy was on display last May with a regular-season victory at Talladega Superspeedway, a triumph that launched him into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, where he kept his championship hopes intact all the way to the final round.

But on the other tracks that make up the meat of the Sprint Cup schedule, Hamlin's performance last year lacked his hoped-for consistency. The downturn prompted what Hamlin called JGR's "first total revamp" in his 11-year career, with a shuffling of crew chiefs that paired him with Dave Rogers -- formerly atop Kyle Busch's pit box -- for 2015. Hamlin said the Gibbs team essentially just changed the decals from Busch's No. 18 to his No. 11 in making the swap, though Hamlin will keep his lickety-split pit crew going forward. 

Rogers, who has worked with Hamlin before in what is now called the NASCAR XFINITY Series, becomes just the third crew chief -- following Mike Ford and Darian Grubb -- to oversee the No. 11 since Hamlin joined the team in 2005. Though each crew chief during his tenure has brought their own approach, Hamlin said he's eager to open the next chapter with Rogers on an up note -- in Daytona and beyond. 

"They all have very different styles and they all work hard and they just do it a different way," Hamlin said. "I can't really explain what way that is, but they get there in a different way, and I know I will have success with Dave (Rogers, crew chief) because I've driven for him before. We've had success before and our communication has been great ever since we worked together eight years ago. I'm confident that the changes that were made are all changes for the better."

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