Denny Hamlin happily sacrifices for teammates

Nate Ryan | USA TODAY Sports

Denny Hamlin hadn't missed the Chase for the Sprint Cup before this season, but he was fully aware of the consequences.

When the two cars earmarked for his No. 11 team during the Chase were reassigned to championship-contending Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth after showing better potential in simulations, Hamlin willingly conceded.

"Every new great car, I'm not on the priority list," he told USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview Thursday. "We had to give up some of our best cars to our teammates because that's just the way it works. Last year in the Chase, we took some of Joey (Logano)'s cars. You've got to earn your spot. We didn't perform well. Now we have to be good teammates."

Small victories such as those are the consolation this season for Hamlin, who is in danger of his first winless season since entering Cup in 2006. Ranked 25th in points entering Sunday's race at Dover International Speedway, it's been a lost year for the Chesterfield, Va., native. After missing four races with a fractured back, he hasn't finished in the top 10 since June 9 at Pocono Raceway — a 14-race stretch that is twice as long as any top-10 drought in his career.

This year's highlights have been off the track, whether the birth of his daughter, Taylor, in January or being honored Thursday in Washington, D.C., by the March of Dimes with the prestigious "Champion for Babies" award for his work with raising awareness about premature births. Hamlin's Camry has featured a March of Dimes paint scheme in six consecutive seasons, and he has played host to families at tracks.

"It obviously touches home quite a bit more," Hamlin, who joined Arnold Palmer, Joe Namath and Greg Gumbel as the award's fourth recipient, said of becoming a dad. "FedEx is the one that gives up their car, and they don't look for anything in return other than giving exposure to people that really need it. I'm just the guy who gets to be at the forefront."

Hamlin mostly has been running midpack since notching back-to-back top fives at Darlington Raceway and Charlotte Motor Speedway upon returning from his March 24 injury at Auto Club Speedway. In the next race at Dover, Hamlin won the pole position for the second consecutive time at the 1-mile oval but crashed and finished 34th with a blown tire.

That started a rash of tire problems for Hamlin that necessitated tinkering with setups, and his nettlesome back precluded getting acclimated to the new style because the pain often is centered in a part of the body that helps him determine if he's running on the ragged edge.

"I'm not 100%, so I don't have the feel that I had," he said. "We're slowly chipping away at it. The results definitely don't show it."

Hamlin took the pole at Bristol Motor Speedway and ran well before a crash and had a promising result at Atlanta Motor Speedway ruined by an official's blown pit call and engine failure. At his hometown track of Richmond International Raceway, Hamlin had an "inexcusable week" of missing the setup and had to get out of the car during practice because of bulging discs.

"I had to take a moment and try to get it stretched out," he said. "When it flares, it's nasty."

He has switched to a new course of rehabilitation and has felt strong enough the past two races that he hopes to avoid offseason surgery if the regimen helps the healing of bulging discs he's batted for years.

He and crew chief Darian Grubb are hoping to have cured what ails the team by then, too. Hamlin estimates he is about "40% back" toward being a top-five team but believes he can follow the lead of Busch, who ran well in last year's final 10 races after missing the Chase and carried the momentum to 2013.

"It makes no difference where we are in points, we just have to get back to being a dominant car like we were the last seven years," he said.

The results might be slow to come, though, as Hamlin is running new engines for Toyota Racing Development that trade reliability for performance.

"Nothing beats on-track testing, and sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't," Hamlin said. "It's not like we were forced into that role. Myself and Darian and (car owner) Joe (Gibbs) made that decision to do everything we can to look forward to next year."

That also might mean no new cars if Kenseth and Busch, ranked 1-2 in the standings, stay in the thick of the title hunt.

"The fab shop only has so much time, so maybe we run a car from midseason because they don't have time to build us one," Hamlin said. "I still have plenty good equipment to be competitive. It's not an excuse, but those little bit of extras that come out of the best cars will go to our teammates.

"If they win a championship, it's going to benefit us. It's more money for the company and for research and development. It's all pluses. We're trying to get back on our own two feet. Winning races is a very high priority, but we have to crawl before we run."