Denny Hamlin Wins at Darlington, Moves Past a Legend on NASCAR All-Time Wins List
Denny Hamlin finished 0.597-second ahead of William Byron at Darlington on Sunda.
The win was Hamlin's 56th in the NASCAR Cup Series, and broke break the tie with Rusty Wallace for 11th on NASCAR's all-time Cup victory list.
Hamlin's victory was the 219th win for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Shortly after Denny Hamlin secured his 56th career victory on Sunday night, the Virginia native said with a smile that he loved two people—his pit crew and Kyle Larson—both of whom put him in position to record his fifth career Darlington Raceway victory.
With four laps remaining in the scheduled 293-lap Goodyear 400 NASCAR Cup Series race, Ryan Blaney had just taken the lead from Tyler Reddick when Kyle Larson spun off turn two for the second time in the race and smashed the front end of his Chevrolet into the inside wall. Hamlin was third at the time and 20 cars were on the lead lap. Fresh tires were the ticket.
All of the lead-lap cars pitted, and Hamlin's pit crew once again delivered, executing a 9.42-second pit stop to get him off pit road first.
'Those guys, man, they are just villains,' crew chief Chris Gayle said about Hamlin's pit crew. 'They just want that moment to where they can go in there and just rip everybody's hearts out and win the race, walk away, don't care what anybody else thinks, unapologetic.'
When they lined up for the overtime restart, Hamlin took the outside and Reddick the inside. William Byron, who had dominated the event, was behind Hamlin. Reddick stumbled and by the time Byron cleared Reddick, Hamlin was too far ahead on the green-white-checker finish to be caught. Hamlin finished 0.597-second ahead of Byron to break the tie with Rusty Wallace for 11th on NASCAR's all-time Cup victory list.
'This is just a quintessential race where you just put yourself in the right place, things will fall your way,' Hamlin said. 'I knew coming in third I was going to have to have my best roll of the day. That is my fastest pit roll, my fastest speed into the box. I needed to put it perfectly on the sign, so they don't have to adjust. I needed to stack 10ths and 10ths and 10ths on my side of the job. When they dropped the jack on the right, I know right then, 'Oh boy, this is going to be a heater.' Our pit crew won it.'
Hamlin's victory was the 219th win for Joe Gibbs Racing and the 11th for Gibbs at the historic 1.366-mile track. It also was Hamlin's first back-to-back victories since 2012 when he won Bristol in August and Atlanta in 2012.
With Hamlin's victory, JGR swept the Darlington weekend. Brandon Jones snapped a 98-race winless streak with a JGR Toyota in Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race, the day before the Goodyear 400.
1. (3) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 297.
2. (1) William Byron, Chevrolet, 297.
3. (17) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 297.
4. (7) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 297.
5. (9) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 297.
6. (14) Chris Buescher, Ford, 297.
7. (25) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 297.
8. (15) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 297.
9. (11) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 297.
10. (8) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 297.
11. (6) Austin Cindric, Ford, 297.
12. (16) Zane Smith, Ford, 297.
13. (18) Joey Logano, Ford, 297.
14. (12) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 297.
15. (30) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 297.
16. (29) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 297.
17. (34) Erik Jones, Toyota, 297.
18. (22) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 297.
19. (26) Noah Gragson, Ford, 297.
20. (36) Shane Van Gisbergen #, Chevrolet, 297.
21. (5) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 297.
22. (31) Cole Custer, Ford, 297.
23. (23) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 297.
24. (21) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 297.
25. (28) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 297.
26. (2) Ryan Preece, Ford, 297.
27. (35) Cody Ware, Ford, 297.
28. (4) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 297.
29. (10) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 297.
30. (27) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 297.
31. (37) Austin Hill(i), Chevrolet, 296.
32. (13) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, 296.
33. (20) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 295.
34. (32) Riley Herbst #, Toyota, 295.
35. (33) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 280.
36. (24) Josh Berry, Ford, Accident, 194.
37. (19) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, Suspension, 122.
38. (38) JJ Yeley, Chevrolet, Brakes, 30.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 120.965 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 21 Mins, 14 Secs. Margin of Victory:.597 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 8 for 45 laps.
Lead Changes: 4 among 4 drivers.
Lap Leaders: W. Byron 1-243;D. Hamlin 244-247;T. Reddick 248-289;R. Blaney 290-291;D. Hamlin 292-297.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): William Byron 1 time for 243 laps; Tyler Reddick 1 time for 42 laps; Denny Hamlin 2 times for 10 laps; Ryan Blaney 1 time for 2 laps.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 24,23,60,17,45,6,12,2,38,16
Stage #2 Top Ten: 24,22,11,12,21,20,54,10,45,48
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