Denny Hamlin clinched his second NASCAR Sprint Cup win of the season on Sunday, in the second and final road-course race at Watkins Glen.
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Hamlin tool the lead with nine laps to go thanks to a insane scene with leaders Kyle Busch and Keselowski.
In the end, it was a five-lap battle between Hamlin, Martin Truex, Jr., and Brad Keselowski.
Hamlin dodged a series of multi-car accidents that caused several cautions and subsequent restarts down the straightaway. “I just wake up and I can’t move”, he said.
Hamlin said that his biggest disappointment in his narrow miss at Sonoma was not completing the cycle of victories on all types of tracks that NASCAR races on. “I only made one mistake at Sonoma, and I didn’t win”.
Joey Logano, Keselowski, AJ Allmendinger and Tony Stewart rounded out the top five. “Thought I might have got a run on the (Hamlin) if I hadn’t got spun around”.
“I just woke up with back spasms this morning”, he explained.
Martin Truex Jr. came closest, getting his Toyota to within a few feet of Hamlin’s similar vehicle entering the last turn of the last lap. “I think we hit on something here for the road course races and hopefully we will be a little stronger for the next two”.
The race, which featured seven cautions and two red flag stoppages, was shaping up as another duel between Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch in the closing laps. He went wide off turn 10 and as he tried to set up Hamlin for a pass off turn 11, he got bumped by Keselowski. It’s all good, just hard racing. “I’ve finally won at all of the racetracks, so it’s a great accomplishment for us”.
Not bad for a driver who backed into a fence on the first lap he took at Watkins Glen and ignited a brush fire at Virginia International Raceway while practicing there.
Keselowski lost the lead on the restart when both he and Busch overdrove the first turn, a 90-degree downhill right-hander, and Hamlin sneaked past to take the lead before another caution flew. So a lot of fun from the driver’s seat and I’m sure the fans loved it as well in front of a sold out grandstand.
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Notes: With his auto obliterated in a four-car wreck on lap 53, Jimmie Johnson finished last (40th) in a Sprint Cup race for the first time in his career.
