Denny Hamlin dashing on pit street appears to be a recurring occasion. Him successful races can also be simply as frequent.
Regardless of being ordered to the rear for a dashing penalty following a lap 70 warning for Austin Cindric getting airbourne after hitting A.J. Allmendinger, Hamlin had loads of time to make up misplaced floor. After spending the remainder of the primary and second levels catching up, he took the lead from his Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Ty Gibbs on lap 354 and led 142 laps to clinch his third win of the yr and third at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“It’s our yr. I simply really feel like we’ve bought all of it put collectively. We’ve bought the pace each single kind of race monitor. Nothing to cease us at this level,” Hamlin mentioned in his post-race interview earlier than declaring to the jeering followers, “I beat your favorite driver. All of them.”
Fellow JGR driver Christopher Bell dominated the primary two levels and led a race-high 187 laps, which means the trio mixed to steer 481 of 500 laps. The crew’s fourth driver Martin Truex Jr. struggled mightily and introduced out a warning for hitting the wall. Though he completed two laps down, he squeezed into the Spherical of 12 by simply 4 factors because of bonuses because the common season champion; the latter caveat means he’s tied for the factors lead with William Byron.
Hamlin’s 23XI Racing worker Bubba Wallace claimed the twelfth and last spot within the subsequent spherical. Whereas Bristol is certainly one of his weaker tracks and he completed a lap down, a third-place Stage #1 end helped enhance him over Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by seven factors.
Reigning champion Joey Logano‘s hopes of repeating had been dashed by a crash on lap 262 during which Corey LaJoie spun in entrance of him and in addition collected Ty Dillon and Justin Haley. Kevin Harvick additionally acquired some harm within the incident and positioned a disappointing twenty-ninth, which means his last season ends with a first-round exit. Michael McDowell completed sixth however didn’t advance to the following spherical, having been positioned in a nasty scenario after crashing at Darlington.
“It’s an actual bummer,” mentioned Logano, whose elimination means the NASCAR Cup Sequence will nonetheless not have a back-to-back champion; the final driver to attain the feat was Jimmie Johnson throughout his 5 consecutive titles from 2006 to 2010. “You get out of the race like that and also you’re behind the wall and also you’re in denial for a minute. You don’t wish to consider that it occurred and also you wish to suppose that it’s fixable, however the automobile was tore up too unhealthy.”
The race was marred by issues of rain, forcing the begin to be pushed up an hour just for the primary stage to endure two rain delays.
