Hamlin Gets Third NASCAR Sprint Cup Martinsville Win

Denny Hamlin closed to within six points of Chase leader Jimmie Johnson with Hamlin's win at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Sunday.

Hamlin’s #11 Joe Gibbs/FedEx Toyota started from the pole, lost the lead early, then regained it on lap 471 after a multi-lap, door-to-door battle with Kevin Harvick in the RCR/Shell-Pennzoil Chevy, which finished third.

Though the race was the usual Martinsville bump-and-grind, with fifteen yellow flags, the last 98 laps were caution free, and Denny Hamlin’s car got better as the run grew longer.

“We did not have a race-winning car all day, until the very end,” Hamlin told ESPN after the race. “[Crew chief Mike Ford] and those guys just adjusted and adjusted, and the pit crew—they got me from sixth to third on that last restart and that was the key.

“I just waited. I was hoping the 31 [Jeff Burton] and 29 [Kevin Harvick] would use their stuff up racing each other and I’d just be sitting there, trying to be patient with those rear tires and saving it until the end. It was a great run by this FedEx team.”

Martinsville was Hamlin’s seventh win of the series, and Sunday’s race marked his third win in a row at Martinsville.

Jimmie Johnson had won the six Martinsville races before that. Apparently Martinsville is no longer Johnson’s home track.

Not Jimmie Johnson's Day

Jimmie Johnson finished fifth, and might have finished worse had the race been longer. Based on history, crew chief Chad Knaus set up Johnson’s Hendricks/Lowes Chevy Impala for short runs. Johnson was dropping back when the race ended.

Johnson told ESPN that despite finishing fifth it was a good day.

“We were much stronger on the short run than we were on the long run. The way this thing worked out at the end there was a lot of long runs, so we lost a few spots.

“For a while there I though the 29, the 11 and us were going to ride together all day long. Then the 11, there at the end, got going and took off.

“A solid performance something we can’t be disappointed in—wish it were a little better, but here is a lot of racing left.”

The rest of the Hendricks Motorsports team had some better luck. Jeff Gordon led 70 laps before being stuffed into the wall by Kurt Busch, and Dale Earnhardt led 90 laps, which drew huge cheers from the crowd.

The biggest HMS winner was Mark Martin. After being nudged into the wall by AJ Allmendinger on lap 226, Martin found that the altered aerodynamics of his bashed-up car worked well.

Martin charged from sixth to second in the final 24 laps; if the race had been just a little longer he probably would have won, because he had the fastest cart on the track.

Martin seemed as happy as a child at Christmas after the race. “That was so much fun,” he told ESPN, “and it was such a bad day. I was running out of brakes at lap 30. I thought, this is going to be the longest day of my life.

“It was a great run for us—we needed that. I ain’t mad we didn’t win—I’m glad we ran second to be honest with you. We were two laps down and I thought we were going to be 28th.

“What an incredible race car. Another 20 laps and we could have caught ‘em.”

Sunday’s result leaves the Chase totally open to the top three drivers. Kevin Harvick is only 62 points out of first, and the margin between Hamlin and Johnson could almost be erased by leading one lap.

With only four races left in the season, the only reasonably safe prediction is that the Sprint Cup will go to one of the top three. But with Talladega up next, even that is a risky claim.

The Amp Energy Juice 500 from Talladega Superspeedway will air at 1 p.m. EST on October 31 on ESPN.

Tickets can be ordered online through the Talladega Superspeedway website, and ticket-and-travel packages are available through MyRaceTravel.com.