Did Hamlin's ghosts in the shadows crush title hopes?

For the latest time in his short career, Denny Hamlin on Sunday showed why he's a very, very good professional race car driver -- and perhaps an even better professional representative of his team and sponsors.

The fact that Hamlin, on both Saturday and Sunday at Auto Club Speedway was delivered devastating blows on the race track -- particularly Sunday where his own admitted "rookie mistake" eliminated him and his team from contention in the 2009 Chase -- made his reactions even more impressive.

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Denny Hamlin had a weekend to forget at Fontana, with wrecks in both the Nationwide and Cup series taking him out of contention.

• Nationwide Series wreck
• Sprint Cup Series wreck

After racing to the front in both the Nationwide Series, even more impressive since he'd relieved Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch, and then on his own team's behalf in the Sprint Cup Series, Hamlin was left with nothing but a pile of shattered pieces -- and hopes -- in both races.

And yet he stood there, for the benefit of the media and viewing audience, and explained what had occurred.

Trust me, it was excruciatingly painful, because Hamlin had to reflect and revisit and try to explain what went wrong. It doesn't take much sense to figure Hamlin would've much rather been somewhere else.

But he didn't snarl. He didn't turn tail, run and hide. He could have and he knows it, because his current and former JGR teammates, Busch and Tony Stewart, have done plenty of it.

So hat's off to Hamlin for being a professional man.

But there's something that began nagging me Saturday and, even though there was no connection -- I repeat, none whatsoever -- to Sunday's event, it's continued.

And that's the lingering "ghosts" of Hamlin's mini-brawl with Nationwide regular Brad Keselowski.

Even though Hamlin once again Saturday accused Keselowski of basically racing over his head and with a chip on his shoulder, for the second consecutive race a potential winning Nationwide ride for Hamlin was nullified in part by Keselowski.

But Saturday was much more insidious than Keselowski barging into a barely existing hole on the bottom of the race track, as he'd done at Dover. On Saturday, Hamlin said he saw Keselowski coming, knew how he races and that a wreck was inevitable no matter what happened. (Continued)