Kansas Does Wonders for Hamlin's Ego

A trip to the Midwest has seemed to have changed Denny Hamlin after last week's brouhaha with Kyle Petty.

He's steeply backed off his fightin' words (an angel, remember?) and is now sporting some new facial hair. The new look, though, isn't the most important part.

His words are.

"No matter what you do, Kyle is going to be right and a lot of what he did was right," Hamlin said. "You never want to be involved in an incident, especially with Kyle because he's respected a lot ... so, really, I've just got to learn to grow up as far as that's concerned."

Does it make up for his actions/words from last weekend at Dover? I don't know, but if nothing else it's a step in the right direction for Hamlin in the maturing process.

Though it would of been more exciting to see the confrontation last awhile, nobody would win in that situation. Petty has a 2008 Daytona 500 start on the line and Hamlin kind of has that Chase for the Championship thing going on.

Hamlin currently sits 158 points out of first in the Chase with eight races left, including this weekend's event at Kansas. With that deficit, you'd have to believe that someone at Joe Gibbs Racing might have been behind Hamlin's sudden change in personality -- a refocusing of sorts.

But I've gotta know, who was in charge of the new facial feature?