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DOVER, Del. — Finally, Denny Hamlin is out of the doghouse with his pit crew.

It wasn't his attitude, notoriously combustible when his racecar isn't performing to his liking. Nor was it simply that his prospects of qualifying for NASCAR's postseason had been in jeopardy since mid-July.

What chafed Hamlin's crew members these last months were their hotel rooms.

Chalk it up to another of Joe Gibbs's quirky motivational techniques.

Since Gibbs expanded his NASCAR operation, he has been adamant that there be no pecking order in his three-car stable. Whether Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch or Hamlin, each driver is equipped with first-rate engines, top-quality cars, and engineers who pool technical data and expertise.

Only when it comes to hotel rooms does Gibbs permit special perks: The team that's lowest in NASCAR's point standings each week gets last choice on its hotel rooms.

"Because there are so many of us who travel on the road, we can't all get rooms in the same hotel," Hamlin explained Friday. "So usually (last choice) is the farthest away. And I've been getting a lot of razzing for that."

But fortunes in NASCAR can change in a high-speed blur. And for Hamlin, all it took was one race — last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway — for his team to upgrade their accommodations.

Busch, 23, who outshone all NASCAR drivers with eight victories this season, plunged from first to eighth in the standings after a broken part relegated him to a 34th place finish. Stewart got penalized for speeding on pit road. Only Hamlin, among Gibbs drivers, finished without incident.

As a result, Hamlin is now tops among the Gibbs drivers — sixth in the standings.

Friday at Dover International Speedway, Hamlin outperformed his teammates again, qualifying third for Sunday's 400-mile race with a fast lap of 156.515 mph on the concrete oval.

Busch qualified 11th. And Stewart will line up 33rd after turning a lap that was more than 3 mph off the pace set by pole-sitter Jeff Gordon (157.061 mph).

"We knew when to come on," Hamlin said afterward. "I learned last year that it does not matter what you do the first 26 races (NASCAR's regular season). It's the last 10 that count."

It's hard to argue Hamlin's point.

Busch routed the field during the regular season, winning nearly one-third of the races and building a 208-point lead on his closest challenger, Carl Edwards.

But the point differentials are compressed at the start of the 10-race postseason. Combined with the poor finish at New Hampshire, Busch now trails Edwards by 74 points.

"It was pretty devastating for everybody," Busch said Friday of his poor start. "Yeah, we fell a little bit behind, but I don't think that's anything that we can't make up."

Surely his rivals aren't counting him out.

"I think he's still going to be a front-runner," said Clint Bowyer, who's ninth in the standings. "He's still going to run up front. Let's face it: He's a little bit of a time bomb, but before the explosion it's sure a good ride."

But for Busch to climb back up the standings, it will likely take something he's not particularly adept at: Restraint.

That was the lesson Hamlin took from his sophomore season in stock-car racing's elite ranks. He had stunned Gibbs, himself and nearly everyone else in the sport by qualifying for NASCAR's postseason as a rookie in 2006. Unburdened by expectations, he romped through the final 10 races "just happy to be in it," he says now, and finished third.

But 2007 was a disaster. He fared better in the regular season, but had a terrible start to the postseason, known as the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

"I tried to make it up the second week, and got into a wreck that put me further in the hole," Hamlin recalled. "Then I tried to push more than what my car was capable of and got in another wreck in Texas."

At season's end, he was last among the 12 Chase drivers.

At 27, Hamlin says he's a smarter driver and finally sees the wisdom in pacing himself — even if that means pacing himself at nearly 200 miles per hour.

"You've got to take things a little bit slower," he says, "and race your own race and not worry about the other guys. You can't panic if you've got a bunch of Chase guys in front of you (on the track) because ultimately they're right in front of you. They're not 20 spots ahead of you."

In other words, Hamlin focuses on picking off one spot for position on the track — or one spot in the standings — at a time, rather than trying to erase a major deficit with one high-risk move.

"In my opinion, you need to have solid, top-10 finishes each of the first three weeks to put yourself up there in the standings so you don't get in a panic mode," Hamlin said. "If you get in a panic mode, that's when you make mistakes."

Top-10 finishes don't garner the headlines that a victory with a smoke-spewing burnout does. But if stacking up top-10 finishes is the route to a NASCAR championship, Hamlin appears to be quietly on his way.

"I definitely have learned a lot over these last couple years," Hamlin said, "and I think I'm better prepared now."

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