Denny Hamlin Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace renewed their rivalry on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway—without contact between their cars. Six days after Wallace turned Larson with fewer than two laps left to cause the final caution at Richmond and take a likely win from Martin Truex Jr., Larson edged Wallace for the pole position for Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). With Hendrick Motorsports celebrating its 40th anniversary this weekend with special paint schemes, Larson—theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor With the laps ticking away in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond, it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that Martin Truex, Jr. would be ending the night in victory lane, but in the NASCAR Cup Series, it’s never over until it’s over. The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had led a commanding 228 laps and carried a comfortable lead into the final laps of regulation when the caution flag flew for a spin by Kyle Larson with just two laps remaining,Read More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team gave him a clutch pit stop to emerge with the lead out of the pits and then he was able to hold the advantage on a two-lap overtime shootout to claim the Toyota Owners 400 victory Saturday night at his home track, Richmond (Va.) Raceway. It was Hamlin’s 53rd career NASCAR Cup Series win, second of the season and his fifth victory at the three-quarter mile Richmond oval – a .269-second margin of victory over TeamRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service In a thrilling final qualifying round, Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron was able to hold on to the pole position despite a 94.685 mph run by Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, whose slight bobble in the final turns – in the final seconds of the session – at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) road course was just off the mark. This is the 13th career pole for Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – and the fifth on a road course, which isRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor As crew chief Harry Hogge once said in the movie Days of Thunder, “Tires is what wins races,” and that was never truer than in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. For the first time in three years, the spring date on the half-mile high banked oval in East Tennessee was back on its concrete surface and back to the Bristol we all know and love, but this time around the NASCAR Cup Series teams and drivers would have to go into gladiator modeRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   BRISTOL, Tenn. — How appropriate.  On a day where tire management was the essential element in a NASCAR Cup Series race, three veterans swept the podium positions, with Denny Hamlin winning Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.  In a race that produced 54 lead changes—a record for Cup Series short tracks—Hamlin lost the lead briefly to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. in the closing laps but regained it in traffic and beat Truex to the finish line by 1.083 seconds. Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service AVONDALE, Ariz. — Denny Hamlin was convinced he had to improve his performance at Phoenix Raceway, and on Saturday afternoon, he took the first step in that direction. Touring the one-mile track in 27.138 seconds (132.655 seconds) in the final round of qualifying, Hamlin put his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the pole for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hamlin, who hasn’t won at Phoenix since 2019, beat JGR teammate Ty Gibbs (132.227Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS — Based on the box score alone, you might think Kyle Larson dominated Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  You’d be wrong.  Yes, Larson led 181 of 267 laps at the 1.5-mile track. Kyle Busch led the second-most—18. And, yes, Larson swept the first two stages and took the checkered flag to secure his third victory at Las Vegas, tying Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski for most among full-time active Cup drivers.  The truth is thatRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a drenching weekend in Daytona, the NASCAR Cup Series sticks around on the East Coast as it heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second superspeedway race of the season – Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400. Atlanta’s aging racing surface, which had been in place since 1997, held together as long as possible, but the 260 laps around the 1.5-mile track in July 2021 were the last on that particular surface as the track underwent a repave and reconfiguration for the 2022 season. The 24-degree bankingRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Rain, rain, go away. The 66th running of the Daytona 500 will have to wait 24 hours after inclement weather that has had a stranglehold on the Daytona Beach are for the majority of the weekend will not be relenting anytime soon, forcing NASCAR to postpone the race to a 4:00 pm ET start on Monday. The Daytona 500 postponement joins the NASCAR Xfinity Series race that had already been moved from Saturday to Monday, setting up a doubleheader to kick offRead More