Hamlin on Darlington penalty: ‘It’s a ton of motivation, for sure’

MORE: Post-Darlington penalty report Denny Hamlin always likes to race at Richmond Raceway. It’s his home track, and he has three wins in the September event, including last year. A victory in Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale, however, wouldn’t just satisfy hometown good vibes and add to his impressive win total. It would be a sort of redemption. Earlier this week, Hamlin’s car from last week's win in the historic Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway was handed an L1-level penalty, and the victory for his No. 11 FedEx Toyota team will not count toward NASCAR’s playoffs. The team was penalized 25 points, and Hamlin also is without crew chief Mike Wheeler this weekend. Wheeler must serve a two-race suspension for the offense. Hamlin said his Joe Gibbs Racing group is using the penalty ruling in a positive way going forward. He also won at New Hampshire in July and is qualified for the playoffs, regardless. “It’s a ton of motivation for sure," Hamlin said Friday at Richmond. “Trust me, this is not what I want to talk about coming to my home track, for sure. You know that part of it stinks, but there’s tons and tons of motivation that will be behind us this week to go out there and perform well, and so far through the practices, I think we’re in pretty good shape.’’ Hamlin said he and Wheeler discussed the penalty the team received and acknowledged it was a fair reprimand. “He (Wheeler) said it was enough, that he was satisfied with the penalty,’’ Hamlin said. “I asked him his honest opinion and he said (the car) wasn’t right." The 31-time race winner explained that after discussing the situation, he felt like the team simply didn’t build enough “tolerance” into the car to account for race conditions. “Close doesn’t matter, it was still over the line,’’ Hamlin said. “We just didn’t allow for running into the wall with five laps to go. We didn’t allow for the dirt and the grime to get in there and loosen those things up as bad as it did. It’s unfortunate. “But we’ll fix it and go forward. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was one of my competitors I would expect the same type of penalty. We’ll move on and try to win this week.”