Denny Hamlin posed in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Series IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday in
Bristol, Tenn.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Denny Hamlin moved toward the top seed in NASCAR’s championship race by using a calculated late pass Saturday night to win for the first time at Bristol Motor Speedway.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Denny Hamlin moved toward the top seed in NASCAR’s championship race by using a calculated late pass Saturday night to win for the first time at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Hamlin flirted with Carl Edwards for the lead late in the race, and
set up the move with 39 laps remaining. Hamlin used a slide move to get
past Edwards, then held on as Edwards tried to use a crossover move to
get back in front.
It didn’t work for Edwards, and Hamlin drove away for his third victory of the season.
‘‘My biggest win, this is such a great feeling,’’ said Hamlin, who
praised the setup crew chief Darian Grubb used for the Joe Gibbs Racing
Toyota.
‘‘It just hauled the mail. This is just a big win, I don’t know how else to explain it.’’
There’s two races left before the field is reset for the Chase for
the Sprint Cup championship, and seeding is done by ‘‘regular-season’’
wins. With three victories, Hamlin is tied with defending champion Tony
Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, and Brad Keselowski for most in the series.
The four would be tied for the top seed right now, but all want at least one more win to break the logjam.
Johnson finished second and clinched a berth in the Chase, as did Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Jeff Gordon was third — giving Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet second
and third — followed by Brian Vickers in a Toyota and Marcos Ambrose in a
Ford.
Kyle Busch was a quiet sixth, Clint Bowyer was seventh, and Joey
Logano, winner of the Nationwide Series race Friday night, was eighth.
Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard rounded out the top 10. Edwards ended up
22d.
The race was the first since track owner Bruton Smith ordered a
grinding of the top groove around the track in an effort to narrow the
racing surface. His goal was to bring back bumping and banging to
Bristol after several consecutive disappointing crowds.
Although the race wasn’t a sellout, Hamlin noted ‘‘this is the biggest crowd I’ve seen here in forever.’’
Asked Friday when it would become evident what the track changes had
accomplished, Tony Stewart mockingly said ‘‘exactly on lap 236. Not a
lap before, not a lap after.’’
He was off by about 100 laps.
Stewart rallied from a lap down early in the race to put himself in
position to challenge for the lead, but he ran out of track while
running with Matt Kenseth and the cars collided. The damage briefly
knocked Stewart out of the race and sent Kenseth to pit road for
repairs.
Stewart then showed his displeasure with Kenseth with a two-handed
toss of his helmet directly into the front grill of Kenseth’s car.
Stewart put all the blame squarely on Kenseth immediately after the
accident, vowing to ‘‘run over him every chance I get for the rest of
the year.’’
As for the helmet collected by NASCAR officials on pit road? ‘‘The hell with the helmet,’’ he said.
It briefly appeared that there would be two helmet throws during the
race as Danica Patrick prepared her reaction following a wreck with
Regan Smith. Patrick, who struggled mightily in Friday’s two practice
sessions, had climbed to 19th on the board and was on the lead lap when
her night ended.
As she approached the track on foot, drivers called for her to throw
her helmet at Smith. Alas, Patrick just wagged her finger at Smith as he
circled past.
‘‘We were just racing hard, this is Bristol, this is why people love
this track because you see a lot of that, you see tempers flare,’’
Patrick said.
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