Catchfence

Gastonia, N.C. (November 8, 2010) – One sweeping pass gave Denny Hamlin a win and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point lead at Texas Motor Speedway.

The nifty move by Hamlin happened on the final restart of the AAA Texas 500. With just two laps to go in the 334-lap race, Matt Kenseth slipped under Hamlin at the entrance to Turn 1 and briefly grabbed the lead.  But Kenseth’s momentum carried him high off Turn 2, opening the door for Hamlin, who swept by Kenseth down the backstretch and into the lead.  He beat Kenseth to the finish line by approximately five car lengths (officially measured at .488 seconds).

Cars equipped with WIX Filters, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, claimed their FIFTH CONSECUTIVE victory and have won 24 times in 34 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (including the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400).

“I was able to side draft the 17 [Kenseth) enough on the front straightaway to keep beside him so where he couldn’t clear me off of two, and that was going to be very important,” Hamlin said.  “But, when he cleared me in the middle of one and two, he did it by gassing up really aggressive and early and I knew it was going to be a hard time for him to exit the corner that way, and he obviously ran out of race track and it opened up the door for us to cross over.

“For me, it was great to win a race that way.  I love racing for a win like that.  Any driver will tell you if there’s one guy you’re going to trust underneath you, it’s going to be Matt.  Obviously it’s great for him to have a good finish and obviously go for a win, but for me it was very gratifying to win a race that way.”

Hamlin owns a 33-point lead over Jimmie Johnson in the series championship standings and is 59 ahead of third-place Kevin Harvick.  He added that he won’t be conservative in the final two races of the season at Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway and Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

“You know, for me, I’m going to race Phoenix as if I’m 33 [points] behind to be honest with you,” Hamlin said.  “There’s no comfortable margin going into Homestead because anything can happen.  So for me, Phoenix being an up‑and‑down race track for me, I’ve got to really be focused on practice day to get what I need to give Mike [Ford, crew chief] the information that I need and just 100 percent stay focused is all I can do.  But like I say, I’m not going to be conservative having the lead.  I’m going to want to stretch that out before we get to Homestead.  That’s pretty much my mindset.”

During the race Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, swapped his over the wall pit crew Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon.  Hamlin was pitted next to Johnson and after the race Mike Ford, Hamlin’s crew chief, was asked about being an eyewitness to the crew substitution.

“We did see all that go on, saw them making mistakes, saw them studying us real hard, and when you put your focus on watching other people, you make mistakes, so I was glad to see that they are watching us and paying attention,” Ford said.  “That means they are chasing.  And they made mistakes in doing so.

“We played our game.  I stayed focused on what we needed to do, and I feel like the ‑‑ you know, that’s possible going in, and you watch it, so I think it was kind of a desperation move.  But it’s something that ‑‑ I won’t say that race team ‑‑ that Jimmie, Chad and Rick [Hendrick, car owner] needed to do if they wanted to win a championship because they just took their team out of it.  They removed their team.  Their team got them to this point and they pulled them out, so this is more about trying to win a championship for the company and not the team.”

Hamlin scored his eighth victory of the 2010 season, including a sweep of both races at Texas.  He won for the 16^th time in 185 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races and won for the second time in 11 starts at Texas.

“It’s unbelievable to me to have eight wins in one season,” Hamlin said.  “This is absolutely unbelievable.  To do it in a timely fashion that we have and beat those guys.  I had to drive my heart out to do it.  That was the first win I’ve gotten other than maybe Martinsville where I had to just drive the crap out of the car in the last few laps.”

There were 33 lead changes among 13 drivers in a race that took 3 hours, 34 minutes and one second to complete.  There were nine cautions for 40 laps, pushing the event’s average speed to 140.456 mph.

Since 1939, WIX® Filters, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, has been an innovator in filtration products. WIX designs, manufactures and distributes products for automotive, diesel, agricultural, industrial and specialty filter markets. Its product line includes oil, air, cabin interior, fuel, coolant, transmission and hydraulic filters for automobiles, trucks and off-road equipment. WIX, a member of the Affinia family of brands, is the number one filter in NASCAR and an exclusive NASCAR Performance Product. Its NASCAR relationship also includes the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award, which recognizes the drivers leading the most laps in each race. For more information, visit www.wixfilters.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.

*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 WIX Filters, Press Release