By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Denny Hamlin hit the ground running with first-year crew chief Chris Gabehart, as the duo won the season-opening Daytona 500 in February.
Combining efforts at the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing camp, they have already netted two victories and five top fives in the opening eight races. For Hamlin, the results have proven what he knows to be the truth behind closed doors at JGR.
“It’s been really good. I feel like our communication just gets better every week,” Hamlin said of Gabehart. “We start to understand each other more and more every week.”
Struggling with pit road penalties in 2019, Hamlin and Gabehart have had conversations toward eliminating those penalties.
“Certainly it’s mistakes that I don’t want to have happen because it hurts the team,” he said. “I’ve put my team in a hole. It’s put us in tough strategy moments through the year, but we’ve had the speed to rebound from it.”
With only one finish outside the top 10 (11th at Atlanta), 2019 has been Hamlin’s most consistent start to a season in his 14-year history in Cup. That is in part due to Gabehart and his ability to call a “complete” race.
“I’ve put a lot of trust in him that whatever he says, then that’s what I go out there and do,” he said. “He sets the game plan and it’s up to me to go out there and execute that game plan that he sets out. It’s a good relationship. He’s on it.”
Working one prior time together in the Cup Series at Richmond in 2017, that’s the very track they compete at this weekend. Hamlin knows there is little between them and weekly performance up front.
“He would definitely – no learning curve I feel like with him. He’s be on it,” he said. “I’ve been super impressed with the things they’ve done, the calls he’s made, the setups on the race car.
“Everything he has done for our race team has been a big, big help and for me personally.”