NASCAR Betting: 2011 Denny Hamlin Preview
After just missing out on his first ever Sprint Cup Championship last season, Denny Hamlin checks in with 11/2 odds to win it all this year. This is your 2011 Denny Hamlin preview.
Hamlin battled adversity en route to a very impressive 2010 campaign. He was expected to compete with Jimmie Johnson right from the start but, in January, he blew out his ACL playing basketball. Hamlin decided to put off surgery until after the season, though that thought didn’t last very long. Hamlin was forced to have surgery, but he didn’t miss a beat. In fact, just three weeks after surgery, he won at Texas Motor Speedway.
It was all part of a second-place finish in the Sprint Cup standings. Hamlin has been very consistent over the past few years. The Joe Gibbs Racing star has finished among the Top 5 in the final standings three times in the last five years, plus another Top 10 finish to boot.
His numbers year-to-year are eerily similar. Hamlin’s Top-5 finishes per season over the last four years are 12, 12, 15, and 14. His Top-10 finishes per season over the last four years are 18, 18, 20, and 18. So what helped him secure last year’s finish in the standings, the best ever of his career? Wins, and lots of them.
Hamlin won eight races last year, twice as many as his career-high from 2009. He proved he can get as hot, if not hotter, than any driver on the circuit. During one 11-race stretch from late-March to mid-July, Hamlin cracked the Top-5 eight times — including five victories. If he puts together another streak like that in 2011, there’s a very good chance he winds up unseating Johnson as Sprint Cup Champion.
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