Five takeaways from the NASCAR Cup race at New Hampshire

In retrospect, perhaps Denny Hamlin’s victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway shouldn’t be surprising.

Despite Hamlin and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates enduring a frustrating and winless campaign prior to Sunday’s race, the signs were there that the 1.058-mile oval could be the track where the organization finally broke through.

JGR has now won six of the last 10 races at Loudon — dating back to the fall of 2012 when Hamlin dominated — leading nearly two-thirds of the laps. Since then, Matt Kenseth has won three times and finished second in another, and Kyle Busch tallied one win and three-runner-up finishes.

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Team owner Joe Gibbs, crew chief Michael Wheeler and Hamlin all noted the success the organization has had at the New England track, and credited a mix of style, comfort and setup for its recent run:

• “For whatever reason, this has been a favorite place for our drivers, crew chiefs,” Gibbs said. “Denny, if he picked a racetrack, it would probably be here in Loudon where he would like to have his final race at. Certainly anything about this place has been good for us.”

• “Once you get a package here that works good and you understand why, it's easy to kind of duplicate over time, do different tire changes and aero changes,” Wheeler said. “It might take a race or two to get it back, but once the drivers get a good feel for what it takes to get around here, get in the corner, get off the corner, you can go year in, year out and try to get that same feel for them again.”

• “I think it probably started with Tony Stewart many, many years ago (Stewart won at New Hampshire with JGR in 2000 and 2005),” Hamlin said. “I watched him many times get around this racetrack, and the track has changed a lot over the years. The cars have changed. But just kind of being a student to the game and seeing what all he's done. ... I just kind of levitated to that ever since I got in a race car on a short track, and I think it's raised all of our games.

"Really the short tracks and flat tracks weren't really Kyle's forte. We worked together so much now over the last few years, he's really good if not exceeded beyond that. Matt has come in and been dominant at this racetrack and so we look at him and look at his notes, and so I think it's just kind of a feeding off of all the good things that have happened here, and everyone is just working off of that and getting better.”

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Here are four other takeaways from Sunday’s race at New Hampshire:

No change at the top: While Hamlin may have crossed the finish line first, the result didn’t do much to dent the fact that Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson are the two best drivers this season. Larson, who has won twice, and Truex, a three-time winner, finished second and third, respectively, and increased their margins at the top of the standings. New Hampshire marked the fifth time this season where Truex, the points leader; and Larson, who currently ranks second; finished in the top four in the same race (also Las Vegas, Fontana, Dover, Kentucky). One or the other has topped the points since the fourth race of the season at Phoenix Raceway, and the gap to third in points — occupied by Kyle Busch — now stands at 108.

Penalties have not derailed Larson: In a span of three days, Larson was penalized twice by NASCAR — first for failing postrace inspection at Kentucky Speedway and then for failing post-qualifying inspection at Loudon. The Kentucky penalty cost Larson the points lead and the New Hampshire penalty cost Larson the pole, but the Chip Ganassi Racing driver was unfazed even after starting from the rear of the field.

“I think with how fast we've been running and all that, NASCAR has kept a closer eye on our team in particular,” Larson said after the race. “Obviously, I don't think it really affected us, which is a good thing, because the little stuff that we got in trouble for so far hasn't seemed to affect the performance. Just got to keep working hard on the areas of our race car that are legal and find some more speed that way."

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Logano loses ground: Since his victory at Richmond Raceway, which NASCAR subsequently ruled was encumbered and couldn’t be used to secure a playoff berth, things have not gone well for Joey Logano. The Team Penske driver has now finished outside the top 20 in seven of the past 10 races and outside the top 30 in four of those, including Sunday’s 37th-place showing after a handling issue forced him to the garage for repairs. Logano, who ended 2016 second in the standings, now finds himself outside of the playoffs — 52 points behind Kenseth, who currently holds the 16th and final transfer spot.

Patrick’s silver lining: Danica Patrick has not had a memorable season by anyone’s standards — with just one top-10 finish in 19 races — but the Stewart-Haas Racing driver earned a solid result for the second consecutive week. After rolling to a 15th-place result at Kentucky, Patrick rallied to a 13th-place finish after starting 30th at New Hampshire. She next heads to a track at which she is intimately familiar — Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Though her NASCAR results haven’t been particularly stellar at the Brickyard — with a best finish of 22nd last year — Patrick tallied six top-10s in seven Indianapolis 500 races in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

Follow Horrow on Twitter @EllenJHorrow

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