Denny Hamlin started up front, immediately went to last and finished right back where he started Sunday night.
Hamlin won a three-wide battle on the final lap and started the second half of the regular season with a victory Sunday night, topping Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe in the Cracker Barrel 400 on Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn.
In a four-lap shootout to decide the sixth race at the Tennessee track, Hamlin restarted third in his No. 11 Camry and raced side-by-side with Bell before clearing the No. 20 off Turn 2 and winning by 0.115 seconds to give Toyota its first win in the Music City.
He joined Chase Elliott as two-time Cup Series winners this season, having also won at Las Vegas in March. Tyler Reddick leads the pack with five victories this season and has 657 points, with the 45-year-old Hamlin second in the standings, 97 points behind at 560.
“I was just side-by-side with the 20 and he drove in so deep on that last lap into (Turn 1) that it just allowed me to barely clear him off of (Turn) 2,” said Hamlin, who overcame a Lap 1 penalty but rebounded to lead 57 laps for his 62nd career win. “Man, what an unbelievable day. Starting first, going to last and back to first.”
Bell blamed himself after watching a replay of the three-wide skirmish.
“I didn’t win the race, man,” Bell said after his fifth top-five finish of the season. “There is nothing to blame. I had the best car on the race track, and we had the lead on the restart. I got a great push from Denny on the restart, and we didn’t win the race.”
Briscoe, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Shane van Gisbergen completed the top five. Reddick was sixth and Elliott seventh.
After the drivers waited through an hour-plus rain delay, Hamlin led the 38-car field in the 14th race of the 2026 campaign, a 300-lapper with a new obstacle: a green 1.333-mile concrete track after rain washed away plenty of grip.
Hamlin made a mistake right away and was posted by NASCAR for jumping the race’s start. His car had to serve a penalty by coming down pit road under green, handing the top spot to points leader Reddick as the teams prepared for a short run to the Lap 35 competition caution.
“I definitely jumped the start, no doubt about that,” Hamlin said.
A few teams took two tires for track position, and Trackhouse Racing’s van Gisbergen restarted at the point. However, Kyle Larson soon grabbed the lead with Bell hounding him in second as the pair broke away from the field.
With about 20 laps left in Stage 1, rookie Connor Zilisch hit the frontstretch wall hard and his No. 88 Chevrolet rode it through Turn 1 for the second caution.
Ross Chastain, the 2023 Nashville winner, became the second Trackhouse Racing driver to have a right-front brake rotor fail when he wrecked with eight laps left in the segment.
AJ Allmendinger notched his first stage win since 2024 when he beat Larson, Ryan Blaney, Elliott and Reddick in a two-lap dash to Lap 90.
Larson led Briscoe in a two-car breakaway until Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota finally passed the No. 5 Chevrolet on Lap 127.
Daniel Suarez, last week’s winner of the Coca-Cola 600 crown jewel race, claimed Stage 2 over Alex Bowman, Stenhouse, Austin Cindric and Hamlin when caution seven flew.
The Fords of Brad Keselowski and Cindric wrecked on the restart, setting up a 99-lap run with teammates Hamlin, Briscoe and Bell up front.
–Field Level Media
