As the days of his career in NASCAR continue to wane, Denny Hamlin remains on the prowl for the NASCAR Cup Series championship that has eluded him for nearly two decades.
While a triumph in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway guarantees the Chesterfield, Virginia-native another opportunity to make a run at the Bill France Cup, the emotion surrounding this particular victory is for a totally different reason.
Hamlin, with his victory on Sunday, reached an incredible landmark of 60 victories in the NASCAR Cup Series, which ties him with Kevin Harvick for the 10th most in the 76-year history of NASCAR. All of this while the 44-year-old driver’s father, Dennis, one of his biggest motivators, has fallen ill.
“It definitely means a lot,” Hamlin told Marty Snider post-race. “This is the point where I kind of give the fans some shit, but not today. I appreciate all of you so much. Obviously want to say hi to my dad [Dennis], and my family back at home. All the friends that came out here for Vegas, hoping we get [win] 60. I didn’t think we were. Put the pedal down the last 10 laps, made it happen.”
Despite winning the pole for Sunday’s 400-miler in Sin City, Hamlin wasn’t the best car on the racetrack for much of the event. In fact, it wasn’t until the final 14-lap green-flag run that the No. 11 ampm Toyota Camry XSE came to life, inserting Hamlin into the race-winning battle.
RACE RESULTS: 2025 NCS South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
The battle for the victory started with just Chase Briscoe, who took right-side tires on a pit stop with 28 laps remaining, and Kyle Larson, who took four tires on that same stop and had the best vehicle throughout the afternoon.
Briscoe and Larson would get battling inside the final 10 laps of Sunday’s event, with the Mitchell, Indiana-native successfully holding off the Zac Brown Band-themed racecar… that was until Denny Hamlin came into the picture.
With some fantastic adjustments courtesy of Chris Gayle, Hamlin was ripping the boards around the outside line and making crazy amounts of time, allowing him to get by Larson, and eventually make the pass for the victory on Briscoe with four laps remaining.
“Chris [Gayle] did an amazing job on that final stop, getting the car just right. I just held it down. That’s all I could do, is just go for it,” said Hamlin. “I felt like I had nothing to lose. Just go for it, try to punch a ticket now. Man, this one feels great.”
After leading a race-high 129 of 267 laps, Kyle Larson ended up finishing in the runner-up position. The Elk Grove, California-native was looking to break a winless streak of more than 20 NASCAR Cup Series events, having not won since Kansas in May.
Christopher Bell, who has finished runner-up in the last two Fall events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, snuck into third-place on the final lap of the event, getting around his teammate Chase Briscoe, who dropped back to fourth.
One week after being eliminated from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, Tyler Reddick rounded out the top-five, scoring a fifth-place result in the No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry XSE.
Joey Logano played a similar strategy to that of Chase Briscoe, taking just two right-side tires on the final pit stop inside the final 30 laps of the event. Logano, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, slid to sixth in the final run of the event, keeping himself within striking distance in the postseason standings.
Rounding out the top-10 finishers in Sunday’s event at Las Vegas were four non-playoff drivers, with Alex Bowman in seventh, Kyle Busch in eighth, and RFK Racing teammates Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski in ninth and tenth position.
Chase Elliott was the only driver in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs that finished the race, and did so outside the top-10, after not being able to fully recover from a pit road penalty — an uncontrolled tire — and finishing in 18th-place.
William Byron and Ryan Blaney both failed to finish the South Point 400 after being involved in accidents throughout the course of the event. Blaney blew a left-front tire at Lap 70 and pounded the wall, while Byron suffered a more severe crash later in the race by slamming into a pit-bound Ty Dillon.
Leaving Las Vegas, Denny Hamlin is the only driver guaranteed a spot in the Championship 4, while Kyle Larson (+33), Christopher Bell (+20), and Chase Briscoe (+15) all sit above the cutline. William Byron (-15), Chase Elliott (-23), Joey Logano (-24), and Ryan Blaney (-31) all sit below the cutline heading to Talladega Superspeedway (October 19 at 4:00 PM ET on NBC).
