For the first time this season—at a track where he was expected to contend—Denny Hamlin finally dodged the pitfalls that have plagued him in previous races and closed the deal.
First out of the pits after a stop under caution on Lap 192 of 200, Hamlin held off Matt Kenseth after a restart with five laps left and claimed his first victory of the season in Sunday’s Heluva Good! 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Hamlin, who won his 17th Sprint Cup race, crossed the finish line .281 seconds ahead of Kenseth. Unlike previous races at his best tracks, such as Martinsville, Richmond and Pocono—where Hamlin was strong early but succumbed to a variety late-race problems—Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota was at its best in the closing laps of Sunday’s race.
“We finished—that’s the thing,” Hamlin said in Victory Lane. “We got it done. Everyone knows that we’ve been strong. Today we didn’t look as strong as what we normally do here, but we got it working there at the end. NASCAR.com
Kenseth, driving a Ford for Livonia-based Jack Roush, finished second and Kyle Busch, Hamlin’s Toyota teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, was third. Busch led 59 laps.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t do a great job on the restart,” said Kenseth, who said his car struggled throughout the race on short runs. “I spun my tires. Denny saw me hanging back a little bit and took off. Once he’s clear, it’s really hard to pass, especially on a short run like that. My car wasn’t good on a short run (and) took us about 10 laps. (I) didn’t have enough to get around him once he cleared me there.”
During that final caution, the leaders pitted for two tires and fuel, but Carl Edwards, dominant in the latter part of the race—he led 30 total laps—lost his lead as Hamlin exited pit road ahead of the pack. Edwards, who won the NASCAR Nationwide series race on Saturday at MIS, finished fifth but still maintains the series points lead.
Hamlin credited his pit crew for giving him the advantage on that final restart.
Mike Ford, Hamlin’s crew chief, said the crew kept tightening the car during pit stops after some initial confusion on how to best improve the car.
“I thought going into the race we had a top-three or -four car,” Ford said. “We didn’t make many adjustments going into the race. Race started, and we went backwards. We were looking at the monitor, and we were 4 1/2 to five-tenths off what the leaders were running. That was disturbing.
“We noticed when we tightened the car up, we went faster. We just continued to tighten the car up and went faster and faster. Still didn’t have the fastest car at the end of the race, but through the adjustments, watching lap time, adjusting the car, we got it respectable.” The Detroit News
Until the restart with 27 to go, the race had seen a different pack battling for the lead.
Up to that point, Busch was the only driver who could break the Ford hold at the track. He finished third, though, after losing ground briefly on the late restarts.
“I was just a little bit ahead of Matt,” he said of the restart where he slipped further back. “When I saw Matt start taking off, I took off. I guess I took off pretty good. I didn’t spin my tires at all. I was too far ahead of him. I didn’t know how that was going to look in NASCAR’s eyes. I tried to back up a little bit, not beat him too bad from the start/finish line.
“Once I slowed my momentum down, the herd was coming. I had to let them go by me, regather, get my momentum built back up in turns one and two, go back after it. Once I got back like that, my car was perfect out front. In traffic there, I was just a little bit too tight in the center, a little bit too loose off. It was hard to get the throttle down and accelerate back up to those guys.” FOXSports.com
Paul Menard came home fourth for his best result of the season, and Carl Edwards finished fifth and expanded his lead in the series standings to 20 points over second-place Kevin Harvick, who finished 14th.
Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Mark Martin and Brian Vickers completed the top 10.
Click Here to Read More:
NASCAR Sprint Cup Race at Michigan International Speedway - Race Results
| 
|