Denny Hamlin admits that he wasn’t the best driver when it came to wheeling around the 1-mile concrete Dover Motor Speedway through the first half of his NASCAR Cup Series career, but the 44-year-old continues to age like a fine wine as he took his second consecutive victory at Dover in Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400.
Race Results: NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Dover
“Winning here at Dover is super special to me. This is a place I had not been very good at in the first half of my career, and then to have back-to-back here the last few years is amazing,” Hamlin explained.
Hamlin, who says he studied some of the greats at Dover including seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr., was masterful as he had to endure a near one-hour red flag for rain on Lap 386, a double-overtime finish, and he had to outduel Chase Briscoe, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, who was on significantly fresher tires over the final restarts of the race.
“Well, things were going pretty well there before the rain came. And then obviously, I had to endure a few restarts there. It was tough; those guys gave me a run for it, no doubt about it. But this whole Progressive Toyota team did amazing,” Hamlin said. “Shady Rays, Jordan Brand, Coca-Cola, this whole team, Sport Clips, just an amazing job.”
While Briscoe gave hope to Hamlin’s haters that a win could be thwarted on Sunday afternoon, Hamlin pulled through in a great battle with Briscoe on the final restart of the race. In defeating Briscoe by a victory margin of 0.310 seconds, Hamlin collected his fourth win of the season, which is the tops in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Hamlin now sits at 58 victories in his NASCAR Cup Series career, just two away from tying Kevin Harvick’s mark of 60 victories.
Briscoe felt he had the perfect recipe to end up in victory lane, but was cognizant on the final restart that he didn’t want to do anything to cost Joe Gibbs Racing a race win. While he would have liked to have won the race, Briscoe was happy to continue his wave of momentum with another solid finish.
“I thought I had him there for a second, I wish the Camry the back was about three inches shorter. I was so close to clearing him, I just couldn’t do it,” Briscoe stated. “Obviously, racing a teammate, I wanted to make sure at least a JGR car won. It was honestly a great day. We weren’t a second-place car, we were a fifth to 10th car. So, glad we were able to make a good finish out of it.”
Speaking of recent momentum, Alex Bowman snagged a third-place finish on Sunday, which marks the fourth top-10 finish of the last six races for the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Kyle Larson finished fourth, and he was followed by Ty Gibbs, who advanced to the final round of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge with a fifth-place result. Gibbs was matched up against Tyler Reddick, who ended the day with a 12th-place finish.
Ty Dillon also advanced to the final round of the NASCAR In-Season Tournament with a 20th-place finish. John Hunter Nemechek was matched up against Dillon, and was eliminated with a 21st-place result at Dover.
Dillon, who entered the tournament as the No. 32, and final seed in the bracket, will have a chance to cap off his magical run through the bracket with a $1 million payday in the Brickyard 400 if he can defeat Ty Gibbs.
Chase Elliott, who dominated the race, ended up with a disappointing sixth-place finish. Elliott, who had led just 136 laps on the season heading into Sunday’s race, led a race-high 238 laps, but on a Lap 185 pit stop, the No. 9 car fell off of the jack, which put Elliott in fifth spot once the pit sequence cycled out.
In the end, he saw a potential second win of the season slip through his fingers, but Elliott got another solid finish, which paired with a 31st-place result for William Byron, moved him into the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship lead. Elliott carries a 16-point lead over Byron into next weekend’s event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Bubba Wallace finished seventh, and he was followed by Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, and Brad Keselowski inside of the top-10.
Christopher Bell was in a position to battle Hamlin for the win, but he spun out on the exit of Turn 4 on lap 394, which sent the race into an overtime finish. Byron, and Noah Gragson, who were having great runs, were both knocked out of the race in this incident.
Bell, who spun twice throughout the day, would finish 18th in the final running order.
Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series is the crown jewel Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That race is scheduled for Sunday, July 27, and will be televised on TNT. The television broadcast will kick off at 2:00 PM ET. The IMS Radio network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
