Brian Bielanski, Editor 

RICHMOND, Va. (RacingWire) – One of the things race fans love is statistics. There's the old adage that statistics never lie.

If that's true, the statistics show Denny Hamlin is pretty darn good at the tracks in his home state.

At Martinsville and Richmond, Hamlin wins almost one of every four races he straps on a helmet. He finishes in the top ten 71% of the time and half of the time, he finishes in the top five.

Those numbers are nothing to sneeze at. It started me thinking what is it about coming home that makes him so good.

Is it the home cooking? Is it performing in front of family and friends?

I decided to ask him... and his answer might surprise you.

“I feel like I'm pretty good at studying when I'm watching other cars and I've obviously watched many many races here as a fan,” said Hamlin. “I'm not going to say being here and having season tickets for 10 years made me a good Cup driver at this track. I've just watched so many lines for so many years. I just always saw when guys would pick up speed. I was watching Bill Elliot in the 90's. I would see when he would run a certain line. I wish I could get on the radio and say you need to run that line because you are picking up every time. You learn those little things and you pay attention to them, and I fell that if I have enough information in front of me I can get better at it. I think with these two race tracks I've seen so many races and been in them in late models and what not that I've just got kind of a knack at it.”

So for all you budding race car driver's out there... don't discount what you can learn when you aren't in the car.

We hear more and more how drivers use racing simulators to prepare for a race. Something as low tech as watching from the stands or studying film might be the difference between being great and being good.