Catchfence

There was a lot for Denny Hamlin to celebrate Saturday night following the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.

Hamlin had just won the race, his second of the 2009 season. He had locked up the fourth seed in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. And the Chesterfield, Va. native had just scored his first win in eight races at his home track, Richmond International Raceway. He led 299 of the 400 laps (including the final 195) and held off Kurt Busch by .378 seconds to win, his sixth victory in 141 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.

Hamlin gave Raybestos® brand Brakes, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, their seventh NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in 2009 and second in the last three races. Cars using Raybestos® brand Brakes have won four of the five short track races this season including a sweep of races at both Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and Richmond.

“This is my house,” Hamlin said after the race. “It has been for the last two years, we just haven’t got the win to show it. Finally our FedEx Toyota showed that we’re a championship contender.

“It’s a good run for our team. It is how we have run the last few times here and just haven’t got the win. You know, today everything just came together. We had good pit stops and didn’t make any mistakes. We just kind of paced ourselves at the beginning.”

And just how special was Hamlin’s victory at the .75-mile speedway?

“Like a Daytona 500 win for anyone else,” Hamlin said. “But this one in particular, to me, was ‑‑ especially after all the heartbreak, it makes it more gratifying to win now. It’s by far the biggest win of my career and hopefully goes a long way for this race team over the next ten weeks.”

Hamlin and Jeff Gordon waged an entertaining battle for the lead during the middle stages of the race. The duo exchanged the lead six times over a 100-lap period before Hamlin pulled away.

“That was a ball racing with Jeff (Gordon) there for a while upfront,” Hamlin said. “I was just trying to measure them up and see what I had in case I had to race these guys at the end but for the most part we had the most dominant car all day.”

Hamlin is optimistic about his chances to win the championship, thanks in large part to improvement in the team’s intermediate program. He begins his quest for the series title seeded fourth in the standings, 20 points behind leader Mark Martin.

“We are bringing good cars to the track and being competitive and competing for race wins every week,” Hamlin said. “That’s something we didn’t have in our rookie year when we were racing for the championship. We were racing for the championship on short tracks. We would gain all of our points there and lose them all once we got to the bigger tracks. Now I feel like our big track program, our mile‑and‑a‑half program is better than our short track program. I think with those six or seven races on big tracks, I’m looking forward to. It I think it kind of sets up nicely for us.”

Hamlin averaged 96.601 mph in a race that took 3 hours, six minutes and 20 seconds to complete. There were 12 lead changes among four drivers and the pace was slowed by 10 cautions for 56 laps.

To gain a competitive advantage at Richmond, the Joe Gibbs cars used the Raybestos® Sprint Cup braking system. The ultra-lightweight aluminum alloy six-piston calipers are the stiffest and lightest calipers available in all of NASCAR. The innovative calipers were developed using Raybestos® technology partner Alcon’s state of the art “optimized design” process, and include an asymmetric body design and advanced between-piston and crossover cooling features. The brake package also provides for the largest brake pad volume (surface area) and largest rotor (13.15” outside diameter, and 1.65” thick) available in NASCAR.

Raybestos® brand brake and chassis parts are produced by affiliated companies in Affinia’s Global Brake and Chassis Group, the leading manufacturer of braking systems and chassis parts in the transportation industry. The brake line includes everything from brake drums to rotors, pads, shoes and hydraulic parts, while the chassis line features tie rods, ball points, idler arms and sway bar links. Raybestos brand braking and chassis systems are also the only systems used by NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing in competition. For more information about Raybestos brakes, visit Raybestos.com. For more information on Raybestos Chassis visit RaybestosChassis.com

Affinia Group Inc. is an innovative global leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and marketing of industrial grade products and services, including extensive offerings of aftermarket parts for automotive and heavy-duty vehicles. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, Affinia has operations in North and South America, Europe, Asia and India. For more information, visit www.affiniagroup.com.

Alcon Components USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcon Components Limited, the UK based manufacturer of premium brake and clutch products. Alcon systems are engineered and designed for the most rigorous demands and are widely used throughout the world of motorsport, from Formula One to IndyCar to NASCAR, as well as in various high performance road vehicles including Jaguar, Land Rover and Bentley. For more information, visit www.alconusa.com.

*Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc., for Raybestos, Press Release