Race to the Chase prompts Gibbs strategy change (cont'd)

"My right foot was just shaking like crazy the last three laps -- you know, you try to hold the gas pedal down and all you're doing is going crazy with the right foot because you know, you're getting nervous," Hamlin said. "You see Jeff coming and you're trying your best not to be that guy who chokes under pressure.

"Those last three laps, when I knew I just couldn't make a mistake, I really slowed down. It was better to let those guys get a little bit closer and not make a mistake, than it was to just go all-out and then open up the door for those guys to get a win."

Hamlin said he's hoping to bank some long-term goodwill from the victory.

"This is a good confidence booster for this race team," Hamlin said. "This is my first win where I didn't have just an absolute dominant racecar all day, and this is what we needed as a race team.

"We had come so close so many times this year, we always talk about what we could or should have -- but the bottom line is we weren't going to have anything going into the Chase if we didn't start getting wins. I didn't want to start too far behind the Hendrick cars as far as the Chase is concerned because I knew this Chase is going to come down to 10, 15 points.

"I firmly believe that. We are not going to be able to start 50, 60 [points] behind and overcome it without them having problems. If we start 20, 30 behind -- I think we can beat them on the racetrack by that much.

"For us, we're being competitive every week, and that's what's keeping us motivated right now is we know when we unload we have a top-five racecar each and every time we hit the racetrack. With a couple lucky breaks here and there, we can win a lot of races. We just have to keep doing the things we're doing and not have any bad luck."

And make the right calls.

"It's going to come down to bonus points, and we scored some of those [Sunday]," Ford said. "It was more than a 10-point gain; it was a 20-point swing, because Jeff didn't win.

"This was big for our confidence, but the number we had in our head was about eight to 10 races from the Chase, if we were comfortable with where we were [in the standings], to start taking chances.

"Well, it's 10 to go and the season is kind of starting to fall into place for us. We don't have all the wins that we'd like to have, but it's to the point where we can be aggressive when we think we need to be and [Sunday] we thought that."

Ford said that three months from now, when New Hampshire opens the fourth annual Chase, he might go a different route.

"Coming back to Loudon, inside the Chase the next time I don't know that you'd make the same call," Ford said. "There's a little more to lose in that situation than there would be [Sunday], so it's typical that the guys out front can be more aggressive and their playbook is a lot more wide-open than the guys who have to not make any mistakes."