Denny Hamlin was the top-finishing Camry in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway as NASCAR made its return after 69 days. Hamlin was followed to the checkered flag by Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Martin Truex Jr. (6th) and last year’s Darlington race-winner, Erik Jones (8th). The Cup Series returns to action Wednesday night at Darlington for the Toyota 500 at 8:00 PM ET.
What was the atmosphere like at the race track today?
“It was definitely different for sure. Just very subdued, very quiet. That’s the biggest thing I noticed, it was just how quiet everything was. That was the biggest change I noticed.”
Did the safety protocols seem adequate and simple?
“It was pretty quick and not much to it to be honest with you. We all have been isolating ourselves for a long time now so everyone is doing their part and social distancing. Felt like we were in a good spot with our sport where we’re a non-contact sport, player to player so this was a good opportunity for us to come back.”
How was your race overall and what confidence does the performance give you for Wednesday night?
“There’s definitely confidence for sure. We kind of ran about where we did last fall, somewhere in that range. Track position was huge. We were really good today. We lost a lot of spots on pit road early in the day. We got a few of them back by the end, but just so important to start up front and stay up front. We did that for the most part, but we just got shuffled on two bad pit stops and that kind of hurt our track position and we weren’t able to fully recover from it.”
Toyota Racing PR
