Everything is clicking for Denny Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team right now. There’s no denying that fact after the driver secured his third consecutive victory, the first time in his illustrious career he’s ever won three straight, in Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway. Fittingly, the milestone was achieved at the track that Hamlin scored his first career win at in 2006, his rookie season.
Race Results: The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono
“No doubt,” Hamlin said when asked if taking his third consecutive win at Pocono made the achievement more special. “First win here, just so special here. I just — Pocono has mastered the fan experience. From the crowd in the stands to the infield, here. Nick and his whole team have just done an amazing job.”
Hamlin, 45, started from the pole position, and while he didn’t lead the most laps in the race, he did have the car that was considered the best in the field throughout the event.
In the closing laps of the event, Hamlin was able to hold off Tyler Reddick and William Byron in his rear-view mirror, as he closed in on Christopher Bell, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, for the race lead. Bell, who was driving this weekend with a fractured left wrist after a hard crash a week ago at Michigan International Speedway, was attempting to stretch his fuel tank to the finish in an effort to steal the race win.
Unfortunately, Bell didn’t have enough of a lead on Hamlin, who got around him for the top spot with five laps remaining, and Bell didn’t have enough fuel to make it to the finish, as he had to duck onto pit road coming to the white flag.
As Bell sputtered to a gutsy 26th-place finish, Hamlin crossed the finish line ahead of Reddick, the series point leader by a margin of 1.678 seconds.
With his fourth win of the season, and 64th career win, Hamlin was able to slice Reddick’s once seemingly insurmountable regular-season championship lead to just 19 points with 10 races remaining until the Chase begins.
Hamlin, who, for the majority of his racing career, has drawn boos from the fans in attendance at NASCAR Cup Series events, actually brought the sold-out crowd at Pocono Raceway to their feet as he climbed from his No. 11 King’s Hawaiian Toyota to salute the spectators after claiming his eighth career win at “The Tricky Triangle.”
“Thank you, thank you. That really means a lot, seriously,” Hamlin told the crowd over the P.A. sound system at the track. “Thank you.”
While Reddick was able to rally to a runner-up finish, he lost a bulk of his series point lead by not accumulating any Stage Points throughout the race.
“Yeah, it’s a bummer. If [Hamlin] wasn’t the winner, you could consider this a good day, but 35 points just aren’t enough right now,” Reddick said after the race.
Reddick, who was mired 16th in the field after Saturday’s qualifying session, knew qualifying was going to be a difficult proposition after a crash at Michigan relegated him to a poor qualifying draw.
“Yeah, we knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this, and we just weren’t able to get Stage Points. I know we finished second, but yeah, scoring the points we did, just didn’t get the job done,” Reddick explained.
Byron was attempting to run Hamlin down for the win in the closing laps before Reddick came to life in the closing laps to steal the runner-up spot away. Still, the third-place finish was a solid outing for Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team, which will look to build some momentum.
John Hunter Nemechek led a race-high 42 laps on a strong day, overall, for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, and was rewarded with a fourth-place finish for his efforts. Kyle Larson finished one spot behind in the fifth position.
Erik Jones, Nemechek’s LMC teammate, came home in sixth, while Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Ty Gibbs, and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
