Deep in the heart of Texas, Hamlin and team struggled

NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Denny Hamlin, a native of Chesterfield County and graduate of Manchester High School, is providing a diary during the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Hamlin drives the No. 18 FedEx Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

It was a struggle for our FedEx team over the weekend at Texas. We fought the same issues in the car during the race as we did in practice Friday and Saturday. We were tight in the center of the corners, but way too loose on corner exit.

We started 28th, and I quickly knew we had work to do on the car. When you're tight in the center, you have to have so much wheel in the car to keep it from plowing. And once I tried to get back to the gas, the back end wanted to snap around. It's definitely not ideal when you're at such a big, fast place like Texas and that hurt our lap times.

Mike (Ford, crew chief) and the guys tried everything. It seemed like if they made one thing better, the other would get worse. The car was definitely ill-handling, and it made for a long day.

We caught a bit of a break later in the race, when the caution came out as we were on pit road during green flag stops. We were able to get ahead of a bunch of guys and start running near the top-10.

Unfortunately, a couple of cautions later, the No. 2 (Brad Keselowski) backed up and hit us as we were leaving pit road, and did some damage to our left front. We had to make another stop and that put us right back where we started. From there, I could only ride around until the checkered flag.

It's amazing to see what Tony (Stewart) has done in the Chase. Four wins in a season is a great accomplishment, let alone in the first eight races of the playoffs. He and Carl (Edwards) seem to have their cars working so well on all types of tracks, and it's going to be interesting to watch the championship unfold in these last two races.

Our next race is in Phoenix, and the reconfigured track is going to be such an unknown for everyone. We tested out there a few weeks ago, but those are the only notes we have.

Whenever they put down a new surface, it takes years for a second groove to come in, so I will be surprised to see a ton of side-by-side racing. The double-file restarts are going to be difficult if you're starting on the outside where there isn't much grip.

Both the No. 14 (Stewart) and the No. 99 (Edwards) were good on the old surface and fast at the test. Unless both of them have trouble in the next two weeks, one of them will be the champion.