In the Daytona 500 on February 14, Denny Hamlin had an opportunity to make history.
The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota would have won his third race in a row if he had won the Great American Race. Hamlin ran well, sweeping the first two stages, but he was in fifth place when an opportunistic Michael McDowell won the race due to a last-lap caution.
Hamlin has a chance to break another record when the NASCAR Cup Series visits Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). With three victories at the 1.5-mile track, he is tied for the most wins at the facility, which has held Cup events since 1999, with Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart.
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Hamlin believes the season’s opening race on an intermediate speedway will be closer to last year’s results than the Daytona 500 or the Daytona Road Course event, both of which produced first-time winners (McDowell and Christopher Bell). Last year, Kevin Harvick led the series with nine Cup victories, while Hamlin had seven.
“I think it will be more status quo on where we were last year,” Hamlin said. “That doesn’t mean me and Kevin, since it’s a mile-and-a-half, that we are going to dominate. With the mid-tier teams, this is where the resources that they don’t have will come into factor a little bit more.
“I don’t think I would call the 20 car (Bell) mid-tier, and I don’t think I would call the 34 (McDowell) a shock, because we were at a superspeedway. I think the winners list is like, ‘Oh wow, where (are) our superstars?’ but we are about to get into a chunk of the season where you are going to start to see some of your normal winners in the bracket.”
Hamlin’s starting position also works in his advantage. Hamlin leads the series standings with fifth and third-place finishes, as well as his strength in the early portions of the first two races. He will start from the pole at Homestead. When Hamlin won his third race at the circuit last year, he was exactly where he started.
In fact, seven of the 22 Homestead-Miami Cup champions have started from the first row, three from the pole, and four from second. That’s great news for Joey Logano, who won the series championship last year at Homestead. On Sunday, Logano will start second on the grid.
You can’t just ignore the 1.5-mile track’s “rim riders,” who have succeeded in running the wall. Last year, Tyler Reddick finished fourth at Homestead after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series in back-to-back years. Kyle Larson, who is known for racing into the wall, has three top-five finishes in seven outings at the track.
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