Virginia Native Plays Fuel Strategy To Earn Fourth Career Cup Victory

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Denny Hamlin proved that no tires on a cold day were worth at least one grandfather clock.
Taking fuel only on the final pit stop, Hamlin found the key that turned his FedEx Toyota into a late-race rocket ship, earning the Virginia native his fourth career NASCAR Sprint Cup victory and the grandfather clock trophy that goes with winning the Goody’s Cool Orange 500.
“The curse is over!” Hamlin exclaimed in victory lane. “We have had some bad luck the last few weeks, so this is a sign of things to come, I hope.
“You don’t come here that often and have opportunities to win the race, and I felt like we have been very close in the past. We timed it perfectly — got to the front when it counted and made the right adjustments to the car.”
Hamlin was leading on the green-white-checkered at Bristol when his fuel pickup sputtered and he finished ninth, ironically allowing Jeff Burton past for the victory. On Sunday, he passed his fellow Virginian for the final time on lap 427, and went on to post the victory.
It was his first Martinsville victory and fifth top-10 finish in six career starts here. He was third in this race last year.
“Track position was so important, and our car was the best it had been right before that caution came out,” said crew chief Mike Ford after the race. “We were going to take two tires, but Denny felt comfortable with taking no tires, so we went with fuel only, and that was a collaboration between the two of us.”
Jeff Gordon, coming back from an early crash which dropped him to 33rd at one point, nearly caught Hamlin at the finish, falling .398 second short. He passed Burton with a handful of laps remaining to get to second, and then ran down Hamlin as the laps wound down.
“It came down to pit strategy and Denny and those guys did the right one,” Gordon said. “My car would never go on those last two sets (of tires); it was a handful. I was just trying to hold on, and then my car started coming back to me all of a sudden.
“Luckily, there was a real long run there and I was able to get by the 99 (Carl Edwards) and the 31 (Burton) and make a great effort out of it.”
Edwards was third over much of the final run, having followed the same strategy as Hamlin with fuel only, but ran out coming off turn four on the final lap and faded to ninth.
Jimmie Johnson, winner of three straight Martinsville races, finished fourth after a spin of his own on lap 297 put him way back in the field, and Tony Stewart passed a fading Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on the final lap to earn a top-five finish.
For Toyota, it was the second victory of the season and the second for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Point-leader Kyle Busch had a terrible day. He was punted by his brother Kurt just 22 laps into the race, which put him behind, and he eventually lost 59 laps in the pits repairing a broken rear-end gear. Busch finished 38th and fell all the way to fifth in points.
In all, there were 18 cautions — one less than the track record of 19 — but none in the final 89 laps. That played into Hamlin’s hands, as he did not have to fight lapped traffic on restarts near the end of the race.
Burton assumed the point lead with his third-place finish.
On the positive side for Hendrick, both Gordon and Johnson moved back into the top 12 in points after their top-five runs.